Home Is Where the R Is
by Anna Sartin
Summary: Giovanni's niece begins a new life in her uncle's custody. Both must adjust to their new roles in each other's lives and learn what truly makes them, and Team Rocket, a family. Giovanni/Jessie/James/Meowth/Butch/Cassidy/Domino/Mondo/others
1. Prologue, Heirloom

**Author's note: **This is a project I've been working on for a long time. It's a double-challenge I've given myself to write a story including all the Team Rocket characters from the Pokémon TV series, and to write a sequel to my very first fanfics ("Forget Me Not" and "The Rocket Trilogy") to compare how my writing has changed and (hopefully) improved over the years. This will also be my first fic where the principal character is not an established character from the series. Since Anari was originally well-received in "The Rocket Trilogy" I've decided to give her the spotlight so as to thread everyone together and also show a different side to Giovanni than just the malevolent badass we all know and love. Whether this project will succeed only the future will tell, but please let me know which Rockets you would like to see here the most! Some will receive a lot of screen time while others will only have short cameos. The fic opens in the early Johto saga and, if things go according to plan, will gradually progress through the Hoenn arc.

* * *

><p><strong>Home Is Where the R Is<strong>  
>by Anna Sartin<p>

**~Prelude~**

**.**

Her journey to Team Rocket Headquarters was a silent one.

Led by the hand, seven year-old Anari Gambini alternated between states of numbness and gut-wrenching pain as she walked alongside Giovanni, her last known relative. Less than an hour ago her world had completely fallen apart when she'd found her brother Antonio strangled to death by the enraged Arbok belonging to a woman he'd attempted to assault. The image was now burned into her mind.

"Are you all right, Jessie?" she heard the blue haired Rocket ask his red-haired partner for the fourth time. Anari couldn't recall his name at the moment. Jessie assured him for the fourth time that she was.

"I'm fine, James."

_James._ His names was James.

As they waited outside for the private aircraft her uncle had ordered to come and collect them, Anari stared at the door they had exited half-hoping to see her brother emerge from it. She imagined him laughing, _living_, telling her that it was all a horrible mistake and everything was going to be fine. He hadn't _really_ died, he hadn't _really_ done all those terrible things and Anari wasn't _really_ being led away from her home and into an unknown future.

_Don't be dead..._ she pleaded in her head with her deceased sibling, despite the fact that she knew full well that Antonio genuinely deserved what had happened to him. At that moment she just wanted him back, whether it was rational or not. _Please don't be dead..._

She tried to tell herself that she would forgive everything if only he would come alive again, but that was a lie and she knew it. Her brother's sins ran far deeper than the act of violence he'd attempted to commit on the red-haired agent standing nearby. His secrets and lies hurt her much worse than the events leading up to his demise. All her life Anari had been led to believe that her mother and father had abandoned her, abandoned them both. _They went away and never came back..._ he'd told her, when in truth Antonio himself had removed them from her life. Had he not confessed to murdering them both, Anari would never have believed it. Still, there was no denying that he had died trying to hurt a woman, or that he had tried to bring down their uncle's organization. He'd bribed two turncoat agents to kidnap their fellow Rockets to lure Giovanni to his compound where Antonio had planned to kill him. He'd failed miserably, and his sister was glad of it.

"The helicopter will arrive shortly," Giovanni said, but Anari wasn't certain whether he was addressing her or the agents accompanying them. She honestly wasn't paying much attention to the people around her. Her mind and heart were elsewhere.

Most of Antonio Gambini's employees, people Anari had known for all or most of her short life, had fled. Some had been killed. Twelve surviving men had stood their ground even after they'd been disarmed, refusing to abandon their posts. These had been captured and one of them was currently arguing with the Team Rocket grunt trying to tie him up. Old Henry- a man who'd worked for Anari's family since before she was born- was attempting to defuse the situation. Anari feared for them. Their fates were now in the hands of the same man who now had charge of her. She didn't trust this uncle of hers- with her life or the lives of her friends- and she had no desire to go live with a man she'd never met before today. Regardless, she knew she had absolutely no say in the matter. She had no other relatives that she knew of, and the adults she _did_ trust had either run off, died, or gotten themselves captured. Her uncle had sworn to take care of her, to treat her as if she were his daughter, but Anari took no comfort in this. Antonio had made similar promises. Just because you were related to someone didn't mean you could trust them. Her brother had been proof of that!

She wanted to cry; to run, to kick and scream, anything other then let herself be taken from her home and everything she had ever known like a helpless, mindless doll, but the little girl's spirit had been broken both by the trauma of the morning's events and knowledge that everything she had ever been told was a lie. Her parents had been murdered, and her brother was their killer. She wished she could just go back to bed and start the day over and wake up to find that the universe made sense again.

"Come along, child," Giovanni said, in a tone that was meant to be gentle when their transportation arrived.

Lost in a daze, the little girl continued to let her uncle lead her by the hand as they boarded his helicopter, barely aware of the fact that she was getting on an aircraft for the first time in her life. Once seated, she stared out the window and watched as the Grunts finished rounding up what was left of her brother's men. Henry had apparently succeed in keeping anyone else from getting himself killed.

_What's going to happen to them?_

Part of her wished she was outside with them, even if it meant she too would have to walk blindfolded with her hands tied behind her back instead of sitting comfortably in a chair next to her uncle. Giovanni was talking on a cell phone, giving orders to one of his agents outside while Jessie, James and Meowth sat across from them discussing their victory. Nobody seemed to remember the fact that it was HER brother who had just died, or that it was HER friends who were being tied up and roped together outside while she could do nothing but watch helplessly from the window of the helicopter. Nobody stopped to consider that it was HER home that she was watching get smaller and smaller as the aircraft took flight until finally the building was out of sight, never to be seen by her again.

Nobody understood how she felt- none of them.

Had she been older and more aware of what was going on around her, she would have seen and understood that the adults around her were not as jovial as she perceived. Jessie looked grim and was clutching her partner's hand so tightly that it hurt him. James made no move to release himself from her hold. His free hand was visibly trembling as he fought to push away the haunting images in his mind of what could and would have happened to them had their Pokémon not come to their rescue less than an hour ago. Jessie would have been violated, perhaps even killed, while he was chained and held at gun point, forced to watch. Meowth was trying to break the tension by cracking jokes and commenting on the team's victory but the laughter of his human companions was half-hearted. By tomorrow everything would be back to normal again, but right now the pain was still too real; the memories too fresh. James' stomach was in knots and his wrists were on fire from trying to break free from his restraints to help his partner. Jessie was fighting the onset of what would soon be an intense headache from being knocked around so much.

Giovanni, meanwhile, was barking orders into his cell phone for transportation to be ready and waiting at HQ to take all the rescued agents to a private hospital since there were simply too many for Team Rocket's medical center to accommodate them all. He was also making arrangements to have a number of bodies, including that of his strangled nephew, discreetly disposed of.

Anari saw none of this, and heard nothing but the occasional strained laughter coming from Jessie or James. The conversation of those around her was like background noise, while her own thoughts were deafening. The reality of the situation only became more pronounced as she flew further and further away from the place that had been her home.

_Big brother is dead... he's DEAD, and he killed Momma and Daddy, too. He killed them! He KILLED them! He murdered them years ago, and I never knew!_

She knew nothing but her own pain. Her mind was overcome by her loss and the dreadful knowledge that for the past five years she had been grossly lied to. She would never understand why her brother, who she'd loved more than anyone else in the world, would be a willing participant in making her an orphan.

_How could he? I thought he loved me!_

"You okay, kid?" Meowth asked, and she nodded. It was a lie, but what else could she say? She certainly didn't feel like making conversation, and she was still of the opinion that no one could possibly understand her emotions. She didn't understand them herself. Only a few minutes ago she'd been willing to do anything to bring her brother back, now part of her wished he'd died years ago, so she would never have grown to love her parents' killer.

_I do love him..._ she thought, as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. _I do... and I hate him. I hate him so much!_

. . .

Upon arriving at their destination Giovanni ordered Jessie, James and Meowth to join the rest of the Rockets who'd been rescued from his nephew's clutches. Anari stared after Meowth longingly as he walked away, until Giovanni's voice called her to attention.

"Follow me."

For the rest of the day that's exactly what she did. She trailed behind him like a shadow, silent for the most part as she choked back her grief and forced herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other until finally it seemed like her body was functioning without requiring her mind to direct it. She could not fully recall afterwards how she'd spent the day. She knew that she'd been introduced to various people- all of whom sported the red R insignia of her uncle's organization- and that she'd responded to each person politely before sinking back into a depressed silence. She would have to be re-introduced to them all over the next few days, after she had re-awakened to the world around her.

By evening Anari's stomach ached both from the trauma and the fact that she had eaten everything her uncle had offered her despite the fact that she hadn't been in the least bit hungry. The memory of her dead brother's corpse wrapped in Jessie's Arbok was burned into her mind and thinking about it made her feel nauseous. Still, she knew next to nothing about this new relative that she would now be living with and didn't want to make him angry on their first day together. She had seen him angry earlier that morning and she didn't want to witness it again anytime soon. So, in a trance-like state the unhappy child accompanied her uncle around her new home, obediently choked down the lunch, then later dinner and dessert, put in front of her and finally at the end of the day retired to her new room. The bed provided for her was softer than her old one and the sheets felt nicer, but the room didn't have the same smell or feel of her old one. She was still wearing her clothes, as she'd brought nothing with her but the garments she was wearing and an old photograph of her family. Trying to distract herself from her overwhelming homesickness, she stared at the faces of her lost relatives as she lay in bed. They all seemed to stare back, smiling.

_Momma... Daddy... Big Brother..._

Finally she placed the picture on the table beside her bed and turned away from it. She knew sleep would not come easy, if it came at all. Too much had happened, too much was _still_ happening. She longed for the stuffed Teddiursa she'd slept with since she was five, but it seemed unlikely that she would ever see any of her old belongings again. That knowledge only made her more miserable.

_I want my old room... I want my old LIFE! _

She lay in bed for an hour, then two, then three. For a while she wept; for her brother, for her lost home, and for the parents she now knew with absolute certainly would never return; but mostly Anari wept for herself. What would become of her now that her brother was gone? What if she hated living with this new uncle of hers, or HE hated living with her? When the child had exhausted herself with crying and given herself a headache to boot, she finally gave up on trying to sleep.

_This place is too dark... I want to go home! I hate being alone..._

Finally she crept out of bed, trying not to let her imagination run away with her in the dark as she headed for the door. The bedroom was twice the size of her previous one, and to the frightened child reaching the door seemed to take forever. The shadows in this unfamiliar place felt almost alive, and she felt a chill as she imagined dark figures reaching out of the shadows to grab her. Finally she ran to the door, willing herself not to scream. To her relief, light flooded the room when she opened the bedroom door, causing the imaginary horrors chasing her to vanish.

When she stepped out of the room she was surprised to find her uncle lying on the couch, fast asleep. He was dressed for bed and for a brief moment she wondered if perhaps he too had been afraid of the dark and come to take refuge in the safety of the light.

The truth of the matter was that Giovanni had, unbeknownst to her, sat there for the past few hours listening to her weep. He'd heard the sounds of her sobbing from his own bedroom and, while unwilling to intrude on her grief, was determined to be close by in case she needed him. He didn't know how to comfort her, this child of a brother five years dead who he hadn't laid eyes on since she was an infant. Five years, he had mused, since his brother and sister in-law had vanished, supposedly murdered at the hands of their own son. Now a little stranger lay in the bed of his spare room, sobbing for the people who had left her behind. For hours he'd contemplated the situation until finally he'd dozed off, slipping into uneasy dreams.

His Persian lay on the floor, still very much awake.

"Hi," the girl whispered timidly to the Pokémon. "Would you mind if I slept out here with you?"

Persian seemed to have no objection to her presence, so she spent the rest of the night cuddled against it, letting the creature's purring and her uncle's soft snoring lull her to sleep.

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><p><strong>Home Is Where the R Is<strong>  
>Chapter One - Heirloom<p>

.

"It was your grandmother's," Giovanni said, as he placed the necklace around his young niece's neck.

"This?" Anari asked, fingering the red R. Giovanni nodded.

"It's yours now. One day all of this will be yours. You'll take my place, as I did hers."

Anari considered this. Her brother had wanted to kill the man currently standing in front of her. What would he think, she wondered, if Antonio could see her now? Would he see this unexpected turn of events as a betrayal- as if _he_ had the right to speak to anyone of betrayal!- or would he consider it a sort of victory to see his sister effortlessly obtain what he had not been able to seize for himself? It had been a week now since his death and regardless of what he'd done, Anari still missed him terribly. For as long as she remembered he had taken care of her and she was still adjusting to his absence in her everyday existence. It still felt like some sort of bizarre dream that she found herself dropped into a new life with a relative she'd never known.

"She made me a ring to match it," Giovanni said, disrupting the child's thoughts as he held up his left hand to display the red R adorning his middle finger. "It's the emblem of our birthright."

Anari had learned that fact quickly. She saw that red R everywhere she went in Team Rocket HQ. It decorated walls, uniforms, machinery- there was even a giant red R on the front of the building. She was too young to know the meaning of the word "overkill", but if she had she probably would have described it as such. Still, there was a certain comfort in the uniformity. There was no fear of outside danger here because everything here was under her uncle's control. She still didn't trust him completely, but already she was beginning to feel at home in this place. It disturbed her somewhat that part of what made her uncle feel so familiar was his many similarities to her brother. His quick temper, the way he demanded obedience from those around him with nothing more than a glare, even the way he stood- or sat- perfectly still when he was immersed in thought... all the same as Antonio Gambini.

One thing he did _not_ have in common with his nephew was Antonio's understanding of children. It had been a long time since Giovanni had had charge of a child and he had no experience whatsoever with little girls. The room which Anari now called her own had certainly not been painted or furnished with a little girl in mind. It was spacious enough, and she liked the large, comfortable bed; but no colorful pictures decorated the walls and no toys sat on the shelves or littered the floor. The grey walls were bare and austere-looking and even the view from the large bay window was dull and uninviting. Why on earth did Team Rocket Headquarters have to be at the bottom of a canyon? she'd wanted to know when she opened the curtains for the first time. _"For protection,"_ was the answer she'd been given. _"To keep out of sight of our enemies." "What enemies?" _she'd inquired, to which her uncle responded,_ "Everyone on the outside is our enemy. They would destroy us if they could." _

Giovanni recognized the look she'd given him then, he'd given it to his own mother countless times when they'd been forced to temporarily relocate to places that provided nothing but boredom for himself and his brother. Madam Boss had been unable to get through to either of her sons that they'd have much bigger problems than boredom if the police ever managed to find them and tear apart their family. Looking back, Giovanni realized that he and Giuseppe had at least had one another for companionship. Anari had no siblings of her own to play with.

"What was she like?" Anari asked. "Your mother?"

Giovanni looked away. "I always thought she was very beautiful. A bit of a skinflint, which was a trait your father inherited. You could purchase something 90% off and she'd still ask if you couldn't have gotten it cheaper."

Anari smiled faintly. "Big Brother was that way, too. Do _you_ have any children?" So far she'd found no children her own age here, but that was no change from her previous existance. There had been none at her brother's compound, either.

"I have a son," Giovanni replied.

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. He's... not interested in my line of work. You are my heir; the future of Team Rocket. It will be your duty to learn all that you can about Pokémon and about our enterprise so that when the time comes you'll be ready to succeed me."

"You mean take your place?"

"That's right."

"Uncle... what if I don't want to?" she asked.

Giovanni frowned. "Life isn't always about what you want," he told her. "This is your destiny. No one can escape fate."

Anari stared out the window glumly. Being told she was destined to inherit a large criminal organizion wasn't exactly comforting.

Giovanni watched the child thoughtfully, considering. He'd done all he could think of to make his niece comfortable. She was permitted to go where she pleased and those who knew who her uncle was treated her with the utmost respect. Orders had been sent down to the cafeteria to make Anari whatever she wanted to eat whenever she was hungry and Giovanni planned on making arrangements to have his most capable employees assist in educating her. He'd placed the child in the care of Domino on the second day of her arrival to go shopping for new clothes, and while they were gone he gave Meowth permission to remain with Anari at HQ for a week while Jessie and James took a much-needed vacation. _"Dat kid shouldn't be alone. She's been alone too long already,"_ Meowth had told him, and he was right. Anari clung to the Pokémon for the next six days, carrying him around HQ in her arms half the time (much to the cat's aggravation) and sleeping with him in her bed at night. Keeping the creature around full time was out of the question- he was far too much of an annoyance- but Giovanni was contemplating eventually getting the child a Pokémon of her own. _Something that will grow in power, but not overly difficult for her to train, I think..._

"What's the matter child?" he asked when she sighed heavily. "Don't you like it here?"

"I miss my brother."

"I can't bring him back, Anari."

"I wouldn't want you to," she told him. "He deserved to die."

Hearing those words from such a small child's mouth seemed blasphemous, a contradiction to the very laws of nature. For someone in the beginning of her life to pronounce a judgement of death, even to a man deserving of it, felt unnatural, even to a man like Giovanni. There was something most un-childlike about his niece at times, he thought, especially when he would find her staring blankly into space or gazing out the window as she was now. He wished he could change the fact that Anari had learned and experienced things no seven year-old should, but considering the child would be raised to lead a large criminal syndicate perhaps it was best that she was intelligent enough to see reality without the thick veil of innocent delusion that sheltered most children. Anari's had been torn from her the day her brother died.

"Yes, he deserved to die," her uncle agreed, envisioning the face of the brother whose true fate he might never learn. "All our enemies must be destroyed to ensure our continued survival. Traitors from within a family are the most dangerous enemies of all."

"But I still miss him," Anari confessed. It was more than just Antonio she missed. She missed her old home and her old room. She missed the Pokémon she'd played with everyday. She also missed the presence of the men who worked for her brother. Always in black, they'd been a constant presence in her life. Some were always on the go, running this way and that on one mission or another. Others stood around on guard duty and would talk to her or tell her stories when she approached them. Still others accompanied her and Antonio when they went out. She hadn't seen any of the twelve men who'd been captured by Team Rocket since the day of her brother's death and she was afraid to ask her uncle what had become of them. She yearned for her old life, and wondered if anywhere would ever truly feel like home again.

_Home._

The word used be comforting. For all her young life she had associated it with peace, familiarity and love. She still did, but now it dredged up memories of a life she could never again reclaim.

_This is my home now,_ she told herself firmly. She hoped that if she could learn to associate that word with where she currently lived instead of the life she'd lost, maybe the pain would lessen over time; but despite the fact that part of her already felt at home here, she still couldn't think of this place as _home_. Unlike her brother's compound, where she had known everyone and could have easily navigated the place even with her eyes closed, she found the extensive halls of Team Rocket Headquarters daunting; filled with skulking grunts and haughty elite officers. The field agents- of which her friend Meowth was one- were more interesting. They often had funny, exciting and sometimes bizarre stories to tell of their adventures out in the field while young Mondo replenished their supplies. But they spent very little time on base, staying only long enough to receive their new orders and whatever equipment they required before heading out again. Meowth himself would be leaving later that day once his teammates returned from their vacation. Anari didn't want him to go.

"I know it's lonely here," Giovanni said gently. "I was lonely too as a boy."

"Were you?" Anari asked, looking at him.

He nodded. "We were constantly having to relocate to avoid the police, so making friends was rather difficult. We moved in and out of our family estate at least half a dozen times before I was a teenager, when it was finally safe enough to remain there permanently. I caused my mother a lot of trouble seeking her attention and I caused even more when I didn't get it. Even after I grew up she still referred to me as her "brat boy".

Anari smiled, and he smiled back.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"I started a gang."

"YOU did?" the child asked. "You were a gang leader?"

"Oh yes," Giovanni grinned remembering the days of his youth.

"So what happened?" Anari asked. "To your gang, I mean."

"Most of them joined Team Rocket when I took over. This organization is like a family, Anari- and you're now part of it."

_Family._

The word gave her a warm feeling, despite the fact that her uncle possessed a distinct aura of menace. Bizarrely enough, with each passing day she found his presence more and more comforting.

"So, are you ready to start the day?" he asked, and Anari nodded. He grinned. "Good. Go grab that loud-mouthed cat and come on!"

. . .

"Dis is da life," Meowth purred, sitting in Anari's lap as she sat on the floor of her uncle's office.

"You look happy, Meowth," she said.

"You're gonna be running dis place someday. Then I'll finally get to be da top cat!"

"You're about twenty years ahead of yourself," Giovanni told him. The Persian at his side yawned, ignoring them all.

"That'll give you lots of time to evolve!" Anari said cheerfully. "You'll make a great Persian!"

"I'm not evolving!" Meowth informed her angrily. "I like Meowth just da way I am!"

Giovanni grunted, thankful that Jessie and James would be returning later today from the vacation he'd rewarded them with. Anari might adore that loud-mouthed creature but he certainly didn't.

"They're gonna be all over each other when dey get back," Meowth grumbled. After a week of being the center of attention he wasn't exactly looking forward to being the third wheel with the new love-birds. Still, he had to admit he missed them.

"Perhaps deepening their relationship will make them more productive," Giovanni commented. "You'd get more done if the three of you didn't fight so much."

"So what do you do at work all day?" Anari asked her uncle.

"I sit around and yell at people a lot."

Anari laughed.

"It gets tedious after a while," Giovanni admitted. "But world domination isn't accomplished in a day."

"World what?"

"Why don't you run along and play?" Giovanni suggested to his niece. "I have a meeting in twenty minutes and it gets boring sitting around here all day."

"All right."

"Take care of her," he instructed Meowth, as he did every morning. The severe look on his face told Meowth that if his newly-adopted charge were harmed or in any way made unhappy he'd see to it that Meowth was doubly so when he found out. The Pokémon gave a salute as he and the child vacated the office, leaving Team Rocket's leader to begin another day of world conquest.

. . .

"What should we do today?" Meowth asked, when the door closed behind them. He secretly hoped their first destination would be the cafeteria. He'd been taking full advantage of his role as Anari's temporary companion to harass the cook into making him various fish-flavored dishes at all hours of the day.

"I want to go to the jail," the girl replied.

"Huh?" the cat asked, confused.

"Where do they put people here that they want to lock up?" Anari asked.

"You mean like prisoners?" Meowth asked.

She nodded. "That's right."

"People dat really tick off da boss get thrown in da cells downstairs." he responded. _If he don't fire 'em or and take 'em out..._

"Take me there."

Meowth led her down into the cells where, as the child suspected, her brother's surviving men were being held.

"Don't get too close to the bars, Little Miss," one of the grunts on duty advised her. "These are dangerous men."

Anari almost laughed. Behind those bars were people she'd known her entire life. She would never have dreamed that some of these same men might have been involved in murdering her family. In fact, she refused to believe it.

"Let me out and I'll show you dangerous!" one of the prisoners said, and several of his cohorts agreed. The grunt stood further away from the bars.

"Mark's been terrorizing the guards all week," one of them confided to Anari when she approached them. It was Kent, one of her brother's bodyguards. He was the only one left, the others had been shot by Giovanni. His partner Nikolas had taken a bullet square in the center of his forehead. "It was keeping morale up for a while, until we got a guard that was too damned scared to feed us!"

"Hey, I agreed to lay off that one!" Mark said.

"Only after Lou knocked you upside the head!" Kent retorted.

"Hey, I was hungry!" Lou said.

Several men chuckled, and so did Anari. Lou had been Antonio Gambini's bookkeeper, and was a well-known food addict. It was he who had taught Anari to add and count money, using cookies instead of coins. He was also Mark's cousin.

The two Rocket grunts on guard duty exchanged uneasy glances, unsure of whether or not the boss's niece should even be allowed down here. Everyone on base had been told to exceed to her wishes but the fact remained that their new "Little Miss" was only seven years old, and holding cells where dangerous men were imprisoned was no place for a child.

"Where's Nik?" Anari asked Kent, suddenly realizing that Nikolas was not among the imprisoned men. "Did he get away?"

Kent plastered a pained smile on his face and swallowed the lump in his throat. "Yeah. He got away."

"How are they treating you?" the man standing next to him asked. He was covered in scars. Anari could not remember his name.

"Fine," she answered. "My uncle is kind to me."

"Be careful, Anari. He's a dangerous man."

"So was my brother."

"He won't harm her," Henry assured them. "Look what she's got around her neck." Anari's hand moved instinctively to clutch the red R sitting on her chest. "He made the child his heir."

"Your brother went through a lot of trouble to try to obtain what's been handed to you, little one," Kent told her.

"He died for it," Anari agreed.

Danial, the youngest of the dozen confined men, pushed past his comrades and knelt down in front of Anari. He held his hand out through the bars and Anari took it, much to the discomfort of Meowth and the two guards on duty.

"Dan..." her small voice wavered. Her uncle said Team Rocket was her family now, but what he didn't understand was that her brother's syndicate was part of her family, too. Seeing them all caged like rabid animals was unbearable.

"We swore long ago to protect you if anything happened to your brother, Anari," Dan told her. "But we can't help you now. All we can do is tell you to be careful, and to be strong."

Less than two months ago this man had taken her to an outdoor circus. He'd bought her cotton candy and let her sit on his shoulders so she could see past the crowd of taller people in front of her. To Dan it now seemed as if that happy, carefree day was an event that had happened many, many years ago. To Anari it felt like something that had happened in the life of a very different little girl than the one who now stood in front of metal bars that separated her from the people who had protected her her entire life.

"I want to go to the circus again," she said, struggling not to cry. Dan smiled sadly and patted her hand in a comforting gesture. They'd debated for weeks afterwards over how so many clowns could fit in a tiny little car. How much their lives had changed since then!

. . .

"I missed you mugs!" Meowth exclaimed, when Jessie and James returned later in the day. His human teammates both knelt down to embrace him.

"We brought you something!" Jessie told the cat, holding up a bag. "We did lots of shopping!"

"You mean shop_lifting_," James corrected her, his green eyes sparkling mischievously as Jessie sat the bag down on the floor so Meowth could reach it.

"What happened to all da money dat da boss gave yous?" Meowth asked.

"We invested most of it in a new Pikachu-catching machine!" James replied enthusiastically. "I can't wait to try it out!"

Anari was sitting in the corner, looking rather glum. She watched silently as Meowth pulled out a ball of yarn, a Meowth-shaped figurine, several kinds of exotic food and a jar of polish for his golden charm. Her eyes filled with tears as the three friends laughed and conversed.

_"I've got a surprise for you, Anari!"_

_"What is it, Big Brother?"_

She shook her head, trying to drown out the memory. Her brother always brought home surprises for her. Candy, toys, a picture book of Pokémon... he always managed to find something to delight her with upon his return.

_"Cherry Chews! Your favorite!"_

Tears fell from her cheeks as she turned and fled from the happy reunion. None of them noticed her departure.

Antonio had earned his death, she knew that. Seeing Jessie and James was firm reminder of the fact. The last time she'd seen her brother alive he was attacking them. Her mind still struggled to wrap itself around the bizarre and horrifying knowledge that the same man who used to bring her Cherry Chews was the same person responsible for the fact that she had never known her mother and father. Now all she had left of her three lost family members was an old photo sitting in a drawer in the room her uncle had provided for her.

In the corridor she found Mondo sitting against the wall, trying to control tears of his own.

"Boys aren't supposed to cry," she told him, wiping her own tears away.

"You think so?" Mondo asked, hastily wiping his face with his sleeve.

"Why are you so sad?" the girl asked.

"Because they're going to go away again."

"Meowth and his friends?"

Mondo nodded. "Ever since they were assigned outside of the Kanto region I hardly ever see them." Next to Anari, Mondo was the youngest person on base. He was more than twice her age, but the two had quickly become fast friends. "Why are YOU crying?" he inquired.

"I don't want Meowth to leave," she replied, deciding that she didn't want to talk about Antonio or the remnents of his men currently imprisoned in the basement. Her young heart was breaking for all of them, and she was frightened of what her uncle might have planned for his captured enemies. Besides, it wasn't exactly a lie. She _didn't_ want her Pokémon friend to go away.

"I don't either," Mondo responded. "I don't want ANY of them to go."

"Why don't you go with them?" she asked.

"I can't," he told her. "I'm a delivery service trainee assigned to the Kanto region."

"So be a field agent instead."

"I'm a Team Rocket soldier, I have to go where I'm assigned."

To an adult, hearing this teary-eyed teenage boy proudly proclaim himself a soldier for a criminal syndicate might have seemed almost comical, or perhaps even sad. To a seven year-old who had never known a life outside of the "family business" and had never had any companions even close to her own age, this boy seemed courageous, admirable.

_I wish I were as brave as him._

"Get out!" someone yelled from some distance away. "You aren't welcome here!"

"Something's going on at the front gate," Mondo said, getting up. The two children went to investigate the commotion. They found two people garbed in torn black clothing being detained by the front guards. One of the guards was calling Giovanni for orders.

"Please, just let us talk to the boss," the teal-haired man beseeched. His female companion was clutching her middle, obviously in pain.

"You'll get more than you bargained for if Giovanni agrees to see _you_," another guard replied. "Treacherous scum."

"I've seen them before," Anari whispered.

"Butch and Cassidy," Mondo hissed. "I thought they were dead!"

Everyone in HQ had heard about the pair's betrayal. They'd kidnapped numerous members of Team Rocket and delivered them to Anari's brother. Giovanni had dealt with them personally- Mondo was amazed to find them still alive and breathing. He was even more amazed to find them asking to speak to the boss. They certainly had more nerve than _he_ ever would!

"Go back to your work, Mondo," one of the agents on duty ordered, when he spied the two youngsters watching. Mondo did as he was told. Anari, not under any particular authority other than her uncle's, approached the man.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Nothing to concern yourself with, Little Miss," he told her. "Run along, now."

Anari found it both annoying and insulting to be spoken to in that manner. She considered refusing him, until she realized that obedience might be more beneficial in this situation if she wanted to find out what was going to happen. She proceeded to "run along" as she was told- straight for her uncle's office.

* * *

><p>To be continued.<p>

Please review if you have the time, and let me know which Team Rocket members you would like to see more of!


	2. The Return of Butch & Cassidy

_As Anari begins to adjust to living at Team Rocket HQ, Jessie and James return for Meowth and leave to resume their pursuit of Pikachu. Anari and Mondo bond over the loss of their friends, when two former Rockets make a sudden reappearence..._

* * *

><p><strong>Home Is Where the R Is<strong>  
>Chapter Two - The Return of Butch &amp; Cassidy<p>

.

"You two DARE to come back here?" Giovanni shouted. "After everything you've done you're lucky I let you LIVE!"

Anari stood beside her uncle, watching Butch and Cassidy cringe as they stood in front of their former employer's desk. Both of them still sported the bruises they'd received as the result of the sound beating he'd given them a week ago. Cassidy was still recovering from several cracked ribs and Butch had lost one of his back teeth. Together they recounted the tale of how they'd woken up in a dumpster some time later and crawled to a pay phone to call the hospital. When someone at the hospital recogized them from a wanted poster and called the police, they'd had to break a window to escape; causing Cassidy to injure herself further by cutting herself on the glass. Butch also sustained an additional injury from their escape when the police opened fire and he barely missed being shot in the back. The bullet had grazed his hip instead. Domino stood on the other side of Giovanni, watching the desperate duo plead their case with an amused expression. She'd quickly concluded from the boss's expression- which was _far_ from amused- that this was the pair's final moments on Earth.

"We have no place else to go," Butch concluded. "We're wanted everywhere."

"This is the only home we have," Cassidy added. "We were fools to leave it."

"You come here seeking compassion from me after you betrayed me?" Giovanni responded. "You're bigger fools than I gave you credit for and I have no more time to waste on you." He pushed a button under his desk and two men in black suits entered the room. "Marco and Niko will be happy to show you the way... out."

Marco and Niko drew their guns and Butch nearly passed out. He grabbed the edge of Giovanni's desk to steady himself while Cassidy clutched her fists, causing the cuts on her wounded fingers to flare up in pain. To her utter humiliation she felt tears roll down her cheeks. If Giovanni noticed this rare display of emotion, he didn't appear to be moved in the least.

"Put them out of their misery."

Butch fell to his knees. "Sir, please!"

"Uncle Giovanni?"

Giovanni turned to his niece. "What?"

"Please don't hurt them."

"Why the hell not?"

"You said Team Rocket is like a family, right?"

"They betrayed the family, Anari," he explained.

"Family forgives," she said softly.

"A few bad apples will ruin an entire barrel, child. They betrayed me once and for the right price they'll do it again. They have to be eliminated."

"They aren't food, they're PEOPLE!" the child exclaimed, not understanding her uncle's analogy. "People make mistakes!"

"Anari, this matter doesn't concern you," he said coldly.

"You sound just like my brother," she told him, meeting his austere gaze with a cold determination that was chilling for a seven year-old.

"Leave the room!" he ordered.

"No!"

"Please!" Butch begged. "I swear it'll never happen again!"

"We'll do anything!" Cassidy added, getting on her knees with her partner.

"Give them another chance!" Anari pleaded. "For ME! Please don't hurt anybody!"

"Uh, sir...?" It was Niko, with his gun pressed to Cassidy's temple. Marco had Butch in a similar position, looking at Anari uncomfortably. "Should we... I mean, in front of the child?"

"Please DON'T!" Anari screamed, bursting into tears. "Niko, Marco, PLEASE!"

Giovanni shook his head and motioned for them to put their weapons away. He glared at Butch and Cassidy, who were visibly trembling. Cassidy looked sick, and Butch was white as a sheet.

"Get up!" Giovanni commanded, and they did so. "You want to work here again perhaps we can arrange something-"

"Thank you!" they both exclaimed at the same time.

"-WITHOUT pay!" Giovanni finished. "The fact that I'm employing you again, against my better judgement, is more than you have any right to expect from me!" They both nodded, not daring to argue. "Take this," he said, pulling a piece of paper and a GPS device out of a desk drawer and handing them to Butch. "There's a new evolution machine being used in the Johto region. I've been told it can evolve Pokémon before the appropriate level required under normal circumstances. I want the blueprints so our people can build some for Team Rocket."

Butch started to ask why they didn't just steal the machine itself, but thought better of it.

"Go change into uniform and meet Sniper on the roof."

"Yes, sir!" they responded in unison.

"Fail me again and I'll make you wish I'd ended your miserable lives here... and that includes YOU!" This last bit was directed at Anari.

"W- what?"

"Since you feel the need to plead for the lives of traitors you're going to take responsibity for them!"

"But... how? I'm just a kid!"

"You should have thought of that before," he said angily. "I'll teach you to disobey me! Now all of you, get out!"

Everyone except Domino filed out of the room, too stunned to speak.

"Why did you give them my assignment?" Domino inquired.

"Go tell Sniper to ready that old chopper out back," he ordered, not answering her question. "Tell him Butch will be flying it."

"I thought you said the only thing that helicopter was good for is scrape metal?" Domino asked. "The communication system isn't working and the navagation system has been malfunctioning for months."

"Quite right," Giovanni grinned. "But I've maintained the insurance policy on it. I'm sure I'll be collecting on it very soon."

Domino smirked, approvingly. "That's one way to solve the problem."

"Gather some men and return to Johto. Get me those blueprints."

Domino nodded, and was gone.

. . .

"Why did you do that for us?" Cassidy asked Anari. "The last time we met I threatened to hurt you."

"I don't want anybody else to die," the girl replied simply. After seeing her brother's strangled corpse in the coils of Jessie's Arbok the child had quickly decided she never wanted to see a dead person again.

"Well, we owe you for this kid," Butch told her. "Thank you."

"I'd watch my step from here on out if I were you two," Niko told them. "You screw up again I doubt even this kid'll be able to save you a second time."

"You know you didn't want to take us out," Butch grinned.

"That wouldn't have stopped us from doing it," Marco informed him coldly.

Anari shivered.

. . .

Half an hour later Giovanni buzzed his assistant and told her to locate his niece.

"I think Sniper was the last one to see her," the woman told him.

"Well, find HIM then!" he ordered. Now that he'd had time to calm his temper and reevaluate the situation with a clearer head, he realized that the one at fault had been himself, not Anari. What in the hell had he been thinking ordering his men to eliminate two people in front of a child? Of course the girl would be upset! He had to repair the damage he'd done before Anari grew to hold the same opinion of him as she did her murderous elder brother. She was too young to understand the intricacies of running a criminal syndicate- she couldn't even tell the difference between an enemy and an ally- and he couldn't protect the child if he frightened her away.

_I'm such a fool..._

His phone rang and he picked it up.

"You wanted me, Sir?" It was Sniper.

"Are Butch and Cassidy gone?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Have you seen my niece?"

"The child left with them."

"She _WHAT?_"

"She said it was your orders, sir. Marco and Niko confirmed it. They said you were teaching her a lesson."

"Idiots! I never meant for her to go WITH them!"

"I'm sorry, sir. I thought she had clearence to board."

"She's SEVEN YEARS OLD!" Giovanni shouted. "Incompetent fools! If anything happens to her, I'll make you ALL wish you were never born!"

He slammed the phone down and put his head in his hands. This was all his fault. He'd been angry at her for causing him to lose face by arguing with him in front of his subordinates. Now, because he'd let his temper get out of control, his niece was on board a rickity old chopper in the hands of two people he couldn't trust. If they survived the flight, he feared Butch and Cassidy might even harm the child in retaliation for the beating they'd received.

"What have I done?" he whispered. "Anari, I'm sorry..."

. . .

"You do it in ABC order," the little girl expained her game to her adult companions as Butch flew towards their destination. "When you can't think of a line for the next letter, the next person starts a new story with it. My brother and I used to do it in the car to pass the time."

"Okay..." Butch and Cassidy replied, not quite understanding the child.

"You go first then," Cassidy told her, as she buttoned up the girl's coat. They were all wearing black trench coats and sunglasses.

Anari cleared her throat. "Like this:

_A was an Agent_  
><em>B beat him<em>  
><em>C cut him<em>  
><em>D defeated him.<em>

Now you try," she told them.

"Oh, I get it now," Cassidy responded. She continued the chain:

_E was an Elitist_  
><em>F fought her<em>  
><em>G got her<em>  
><em>H helped her<em>  
><em>I ignored her<em>  
><em>J jumped her<em>  
><em>K killed her <em>_  
><em>_M mourned her_

"You forgot "L", Butch informed her.

"No I didn't," Cassidy replied indignantly, before silently running the letters E through M in her head. "Wait... Yes, I did."

Butch snickered.

"What's an elitist?" Anari inquired. Before anyone could answer her, a blast knocked her and Cassidy both to the floor.

"What was THAT?" Cassidy asked her partner.

"A Fearow!" Butch answered. "It hit the chopper."

"Why didn't you avoid it?"

"I don't know, something's wrong with the navigation system."

Just as Cassidy and Anari had gotten back on their feet, they were knocked down again. Cassidy, who was still recovering from three cracked ribs, hissed in pain.

"It's angry now!" Butch told them. "It's ramming the chopper!"

"Radio for help!" Cassidy told him.

"I'm trying, the communication system isn't working," Butch said.

"That's bad, isn't it?" Anari asked, clutching Cassidy's arm. Cassidy nodded.

"We've got an even bigger problem!" Butch yelled, suddenly sounding panicked.

"What's wrong, Butch?" Cassidy asked.

"THAT!" he shouted, pointing at the growing crack in the windshield.

"It's breaking!" the youngest member of their group cried.

"We're going to have to make an emergancy exit!" Cassidy shouted, throwing a parachute to Butch.

"You mean we have to jump out of the plane?" Anari asked.

"That's right," Butch confirmed, picking her up.

"We'll all DIE!" Anari screamed, beginning to cry.

"No, we won't," Butch assured her, smiling. "Just hold tight to me, kiddo."

She watched as Cassidy vacated the aircraft and screamed when Butch jumped next. Her over-sized sunglasses slid from her face and were lost. She clung to Butch with a vice grip, lest she slip from his hold just as easily. Butch released the parachute and they floated gently back to earth.

"There you go," Butch said, when they'd untangled themselves.

"Thanks, Bob."

"It's Butch."

"Sorry."

The sound of an explosion was heard in the distance.

"Do you think my uncle will be mad at us for breaking his plane?" she asked.

"Helicopter," Butch corrected her. "And even if he is there's nothing we can do about it now."

"We'll deal with it after we complete our mission," Cassidy told them. "Have you still got the address?"

"Got it," Butch confirmed.

"Good. Now we just need to figure out how we're going to GET there!"

"It's in that direction," Butch pointed, after consulting with the GPS he'd pulled out of his pocket. "We'll have to walk for now."

His companions nodded tiredly.

"It's your turn," Anari informed him as they headed in the direction he'd pointed. "For the letter game."

"Fine," he agreed. "N was a Ninja..."

. . .

Several miles of walking, two ferry rides and a hijacked blimp later the three arrived at their destination.

"Shouldn't we have untied those people in the blimp before we left?" Anari asked.

"And give them the chance to call the cops while we're still in the area?" Butch retorted. "Not a chance!"

"Someone will find them eventually," Cassidy assured her. "And when they do we need to be as far away as possible!"

"Let that be a lesson for you," Butch told the little girl. "Never hang around a crime scene longer than you have to. Do what needs to be done and go, otherwise you increase your chances of being caught."

It was sound advice, but at the moment Anari had a more pressing matter on her mind.

"I'm hungry," she complained.

"We're ALL hungry," Cassidy told her. "The boss didn't give us any money so you'll have to suck it up."

"Cassidy, look!" Butch pointed to the side of the building, where Domino was standing with a squad of grunts.

"What the hell is Domino doing here?" Cassidy asked. "The boss gave this assignment to us!"

"Maybe he's testing us," Butch suggested. "Having her watch to make sure we get the job done."

"Or maybe he sent them to help," Anari offered optimistically.

"Somehow I doubt it," Cassidy muttered. "Domino!"

"What are YOU two doing here?" Domino asked, amazed to find them still alive. She didn't notice Anari, who was standing behind Cassidy.

"You know very well why we're here!" Butch shouted. "The boss gave this assignment to us!"

"Well, you're too late!" the Elite agent smirked. "I've got the information he needs right here!" She held up a computer chip smugly.

"You mean we came all this way for _nothing_?" Anari moaned from behind Cassidy, burying her face in the back of the woman's trench coat. Domino didn't hear her.

"Clean the place out," Domino ordered the grunts under her command. "And transport all the Pokémon you collect to headquarters via the Johto base." She then flew off in her jet pack, laughing.

"So what do we do?" Butch asked his partner.

"I suppose we help rob the place," Cassidy answered. "I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't want to go back to the boss empty-handed."

"Me neither," Butch agreed.

They followed the rest of the men inside. Anari had never been part of a heist before and watched the whole process with great curiosity. Everyone moved quickly and efficiently to relieve the place of pokéballs, light-weight machinery and anything else they suspected might prove useful. One man had even thought to steal all the Pokémon food stored on the lower shelves while one of the female grunts raided the medicine cabinets above. Cassidy grabbed a mostly-empty sack sitting on the floor and immediately got to work.

"Hand me a sack, would you?" Butch asked the grunt next to him.

"We 're not working with the likes of you," the man informed him. "Last time we met you knocked me out and threw me in a cell."

"And me," a man on the other side of the room chimed in.

Butch and Cassidy exchanged glances, suddenly understanding that this was part of the change they would have to endure as they worked to re-establish themselves within Team Rocket. It wasn't just the boss they were going to have to convince of their sincerity. They'd betrayed numerous other members of the organization, especially those in the lower ranks, by kidnapping them and delivering them to Giovanni's treacherous nephew. They'd been paid well for their disloyalty and everyone knew it.

A female grunt, who'd just filled her sack with stolen pokéballs, approached the duo hatefully.

"If you recall, the last time I saw the two of you was when you escorted me to that sick _pig_ Gambini's office."

Anari's heart clenched at the mention of her brother's name, while Butch and Cassidy lowered their eyes to the floor guiltily.

"I don't know why the boss hasn't killed you yet," the woman continued, "But be assured I'll be _first_ in line to volunteer if he needs any assistance."

"Did he hurt you?" Anari asked her softly. The woman glared at the child, before walking away.

Anari had walked in on her brother knocking Jessie violently to the floor; and later, after pleading with them to spare Antonio's life he'd turned on them and confessed to the very thing Anari had insisted- and believed with all her heart- that he was incapable of.

_My parents didn't live to cross me, and neither will you!_

She wondered what other terrible things he was guilty of, but the sudden sound of sirens broke her train of thought.

"Let's get out of here!" Cassidy shouted.

"We don't take orders from traitors!"

"We've got the boss's kid!" Butch yelled. "Do YOU want to explain to him if the mission is botched and something happens to her?"

"Secure the exits!" they heard a female voice order.

"Shit!" Butch swore. "It's Officer Jenny!"

"Can we get out the back?" Cassidy asked.

"I don't think so," one of the grunts said, looking out the window. "The police have the building surrounded."

"Bob, what are we gonna do?" Anari asked, clutching Butch's leg.

"It's BUTCH!"

"Looks like we're getting carted off again," Cassidy sighed. "I don't think the boss is going to bail us out this time."

"We've got bigger problems than bail money," Butch replied, pointing to the little girl clinging to him. "What are we going to do about HER?"

"We can't let the police get their hands on her," Cassidy said.

"The boss would roast us all!" one of the grunts behind her said. The rest of his cohorts nodded in agreement.

"We're going to have to hide her somewhere," Cassidy said.

"HIDE ME? WHERE?" Anari asked, starting to panic.

"There!" Butch said, pointing to an air vent in the wall. "It's too small for us, but I think she'll fit."

He rushed to remove the dusty vent while someone handed Anari a cell phone.

"One of our scientists has a research base nearby," the agent told her. "As soon as everyone leaves call Dr. Namba and tell him what's happened. He's on speed dial."

"Get as far in as you can without losing sight of the vent, and don't make any noise," Cassidy instructed her.

"Don't leave me alone!" Anari pleaded, as Butch hoisted her up so she could crawl in the air passage. "I'm scared!"

"Be strong," Cassidy smiled reassuringly. "You're a member of Team Rocket now, so be brave!"

"But-"

"You'll be fine," Butch promised, putting the vent back in place. "Let's get out this room!" he ordered everyone else. "We don't want to draw the police's attention here!"

"Bob! Cassidy! Wait!" Anari sobbed. "Don't leave me!"

"It's BUTCH!" Butch told her, turning out the lights and shutting the door.

Anari was left in total darkness. "Get me out!" she screamed. "Please, I'm SCARED!"

The passage was too narrow for her to turn around, so she tried to back out of it and kick the vent off with her foot. It wouldn't budge. She opened the cell phone, trying to take some comfort from the faint light it provided as she crawled deeper into the tunnel and called Dr. Namba.

"D- Dr. Panda?"

"It's NAMBA!" the voice on the other end of the line told her. "And I know all about it. I'm sending someone to help."

"O-okay," Anari whispered, trying to control her tears.

"One of our agents will be there to pick you up as soon as everything calms down. He'll be in disguise. I'm texting you a password now, don't go with anyone unless they know it!"

"Right." Anari waited for the text, and laughed when "Little Rocket" appeared on the phone.

_I wonder how he knew what was going on before I called him? _Fingering the R necklace she was wearing, she listened as the police raided the building. _If they find me, will I go to jail?_

She sighed, wondering if her uncle was still angry at her.

"Even Big Brother's punishments were never THIS bad..." she whispered, closing her eyes. "Uncle Giovanni... please come and get me..."

She laid down, took a deep breath and waited to be rescued.

* * *

><p>To be continued in Chapter 3: "Little Rocket"<p>

.

**Author's note:** This chapter takes place before episode 146 _Tricks of the Trade_ (as Jessie was still in possession of Likitung in "The Rocket Series"). Therefore Butch and Cassidy have not yet met Dr. Namba, who they first met and worked with in episode 220, _The Mystery is History_.

Reviews are always appreciated!


	3. Little Rocket

_After betraying Team Rocket to its enemies, Butch and Cassidy were beaten and left to die in the dumpster of a back alley. Injured and pursued by the authorities the duo returned to Giovanni to beg for a second chance. Unable to kill them in front of his seven-year old niece, Giovanni arranges to have them quietly eliminated by sending them to Johto aboard an unsafe helicopter. He learns too late that the child has joined them on their flight, surviving one disaster only to be caught in the middle of a police raid..._

* * *

><p><strong>Home Is Where the R Is<br>**Chapter Three - Little Rocket**  
><strong>

.

Anari couldn't say how long she'd spent hiding in the air duct waiting for someone to come and get her. The sounds of the police raiding the building frightened her, especially whenever someone came close to her hiding place. She held her breath as they passed, too terrified to make a sound.

_I wish Persian was here now..._ she thought, wishing she could bury her face in the great cat's fur._ It would scare all of them away. I don't suppose it would fit in the tunnel, though._

She knew she was going to have to wait until the raid was over to be rescued, so she tried to calm herself and think of something unrelated to the fact that she was trapped in this dark, dusty place.

_I wonder if Persian is a boy or a girl? __Meowth might know. I wish I had a Pokémon... t__hen I wouldn't be all alone. A charmander would be nice. It could light up this tunnel with its tail._

Suddenly she felt something touch her arm, and instantly regretted her wish. The only Pokémon she would find in a place like this would be wild ones, and she was in no position to escape if they turned out to be unfriendly. Slowly she opened the cell phone she was still holding to shine light on what was touching her. She found herself nose to nose with a Rattata. She shrieked so loud the sound hurt her ears as it echoed through the passage. The Rattata fled the way it came.

_Get me out of here! Get me out get me out get me out..._

Anari had always been fond of Pokémon and had never had reason to fear them before, but playing with them in the light of day was entirely different from encountering them alone in the dark where everything seemed twice as scary. When the sound of her cry had died down, Anari lay still, breathing heavily and trying not to panic as she waited to hear the sound of someone to coming to investigate the noise. To her relief, no one came. She tried to compose herself, as her brother had taught her before he...

_No, don't think about that!_

The image of Antonio's corpse in the coils of Arbok came to her unbidden.

_Don't think, don't think, don't..._

She began to cry silently. He had loved her, she was certain of it. He was a murder, a liar, a psychopath- but Anari knew that despite all of that he had loved her. Now he was gone, _everyone_ was gone, and she was heaven knows where trapped alone in a dark air duct with Rattata and goodness only knew what else. She now sorely regretted fighting with her uncle.

_Maybe there are ghost Pokémon here,_ she thought, shivering. _Big Brother always said they like dark places... _

The sound of Rattata scurrying nearby in another tunnel caused her to whimper.

_Please get me out of here... Uncle Giovanni..._

"Hey! Little Rocket!"

Anari opened her eyes.

"Little Rocket! You there?"

"I'm here!" Anari called out, relieved. She crawled back the way she'd come, where a gruff-looking man on the other side had already removed the vent. He held out his arms to her. The police uniform he was wearing had obviously been stolen from a man considerably smaller than he was and he didn't look very comfortable in such tight clothing. The short sleeves had ripped from trying to accommodate his muscular arms. Had Anari not known he was here to help her, she probably would have been afraid of him. Perhaps if she had been anyone other than his boss's niece he might have given her reason to.

"Thank you so much!" Anari exclaimed, after he'd helped her down. "It was dark in there!"

"I can imagine," her rescuer said, putting the vent back in place as Anari dusted herself off. "Let's get out of here."

"You bet!"

They wasted no time getting out of the place, and Anari was relieved to find a jeep parked not far off.

"We haven't been properly introduced yet," the man said, buckling his seatbelt. "I'm Tyson."

"I'm Anari- Anari Gambini," she replied, buckling her own seatbelt. "Thank you for rescuing me."

"You're welcome."

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To Professor Namba's research base. Your uncle will pick you up from there."

Anari's face lit up. "He's coming to get me?"

"So I've been told," Tyson responded, pulling out a two-way radio. "This is Tyson. I've got the girl. We're now en route."

"Roger. I'll be waiting when you reach your destination," the voice at the other end said.

The ride in the jeep wasn't a very long one, and ended abruptly alongside a beach where a uniformed agent was waiting. Anari hopped out of the vehicle and looked around.

"I don't understand... Where's the base?"

"This way," Tyson directed, pointing to a piece of machinary the seven year-old had never seen before. "It's a submarine," he explained, noticing Anari's puzzled expression. "It will let us travel underwater."

"UNDER the water? Is it like a boat?"

"No, boats float on TOP of the water."

Anari followed the two men inside. "So it's a machine that swims."

"That's right. It's the only way to get to Namba's lab."

Both times Anari had boarded a helicopter she'd been unable to properly enjoy the ride. The first time, after the death of her brother, she'd been so stunned and heartsick she had paid very little attention to her surroundings; and her second flight had ended in such a terrifying way she wasn't sure she wanted to ever get on an aircraft again. With no such problems hindering her this time, her first ride on a submarine was quite enjoyable.

"This is incredible!" she exclaimed, as she watched a school of Magikarp through the window. One of them strayed from the group to observe Anari through the glass. "I'd love to build a house down here," she told the two men. "One made of glass so I could see all the water Pokémon."

"Until an angry Garados came along and smashed it," Tyson responded practically. He bent over and a ripping sound caused Anari and the other agent to look at him. He turned red.

"You ripped the seat of your pants," the agent observed from behind him.

"It's not MY fault they gave me clothes that don't fit!" Tyson barked.

Anari giggled, and returned to gazing out the window. It was like an aquatic wonderland. The large number of different water Pokémon they encountered fascinated her and she imagined herself out there swimming with them.

"Look at THAT!" she exclaimed suddenly, pointing to a metallic structure located on the ocean floor, where a curious Quilfish was swimming around it.

"That's the base," Tyson told her.

Fascinated, the child watched as the structure opened to receive them and closed behind them. She felt a twinge of sadness as the Quilfish disappeared from view.

.

The group walked down a long corridor before entering what looked like a control room. Several grunts stood at attention by the exits while two eccentric-looking men in lab coats were conversing in the center of the room. They both turned to look at the new arrivals.

"Ah, Tyson, you've returned," Professor Sebastian said, turning to face him.

"Yes, and I've got a complaint! The disguise you provided for me-"

"Appears to fit you very poorly," Sebastian finished calmly. "I'd suggest you go change out of it."

Tyson stalked off, huffing, followed by the agent who had accompanied them to base. Anari was left standing in front of the other scientist. He had large, bushy eyebrows and an even larger, bushier mustache.

"Who are you?" he asked in a demanding tone. It was Dr. Namba, Anari recognized his voice from their phone conversation.

"Um... I'm Anari. We talked on the phone."

"Oh. Right. Well, stay out of the way until someone comes to collect you."

"I thought my uncle-"

"WHERE'S MY FISH STICKS?" Namba suddenly shouted, causing Anari to jump. She realized a few seconds later that this last sentence was directed at a grunt who had just entered the room.

"Right here, sir," the man responded, holding up a plate.

"Good, I'm starving!" He seized a fish stick and turned back to resume his conversation with Sebastian, ignoring Anari and leaving the unfortunate grunt stuck holding the plate like a human table.

Anari was also hungry. She'd had nothing since breakfast that morning and the smell of food was making her tummy rumble. She waited to be offered something, but when the offer was not forthcoming she decided to take matters into her own hands. Namba reached for another fish stick, and as soon as his back was turned Anari also grabbed one and quickly retreated back to standing on his opposite side. The grunt moved to say something, but Professor Sebastian shook his head, smiling. The child repeated this process nine more times, until the plate was empty. Realizing that standing around with an empty dish was pointless, the grunt turned to leave.

"Just where do you think you're going?" Namba demanded.

"Back to work, Sir."

"WHERE'S MY FOOD?" he demanded. "I HAD WHOLE PLATE OF FISH STICKS!"

"You must have eaten them all," Sebastian responded calmly. He enjoyed watching his more animated colleague's emotional outbursts, perhaps because he himself never lost his composure. Visiting Namba always proved to be entertaining.

"But... I..." Namba looked at the nervous grunt holding the empty plate, then at Sebastian, then at Anari. Anari stared back at him with big, innocent brown eyes. It was at this point Tyson re-entered the room, now dressed in his usual uniform. Flustered, Namba shook his head before shouting, "SOMEBODY BRING ME MORE FOOD!"

All the grunts in the room, who's been struggling to conceal their snickering the entire time, volunteered at once.

"Well, see to it!" Namba yelled.

The men departed immediately, all but falling over themselves to get out of the room. As soon as they were a safe distance away, the entire group burst into laughter.

"And get HER out of here as well!" Namba ordered Tyson, pointing to Anari. "Take her somewhere to wait for the boss where she won't cause any trouble!"

"Yes, Sir."

Tyson turned and led Anari out of the room. Professor Sebastian winked at her as they departed.

.

"Who are those men?" Anari asked as they walked down the hall.

"Team Rocket scientists," Tyson responded. "Namba runs this base. Professor Sebastian is stationed elsewhere. My men and I were ordered to provide a security escort for him so the two could exchange information."

"Couldn't they have done that over the video phone?" the child asked logically.

"It's not my place to question orders," he answered, not wanting to admit to the seven year-old that he didn't know.

"Sebastian's the third scientist to visit in the past week," another agent told them as he joined their group. Anari recognized him as the same man who'd met them at the beach. "Namba's having trouble with some device he created."

_...some device he created._

Anari stopped. "Did you hear something?"

_Did you here something?_

The men also stopped.

"It's coming from Namba's office," Tyson responded, equally baffled.

_It's coming from Namba's office._

"One of you must have one of Namba's listening devices on you," the agent said. "Did he give either of you a cell phone?"

_...either of you a cell phone?_

"Oh!" Anari exclaimed, pulling the phone she'd been given out of her pocket."It must be this thing!"

_It must be this thing!_

"Well, get rid of it," Tyson told her. "It's annoying!"

Anari agreed wholeheartedly. She entered the office and left the phone on a table.

"So that's how he knew what was happening before I called him," Anari said, as they continued on their way.

"Namba often plants listening devices on those under his command," the other agent explained. "He claims it's for security purposes but personally I think the man's just nosy. He had one on me awhile ago. I didn't realize it until he called me in the middle of the grocery store and told me to pick him up some bananas while I was there."

"That's... kind of creepy," Anari said. Tyson agreed.

. . .

The lunchroom wasn't overly large, and was extremely crowded. Tyson ordered everyone out of the way and the group of grunts grudgingly cleared a path for their superior. Unlike the people working at Team Rocket Headquarters, no one here was aware of Anari's identity and they all wondered who she was and why a child her age was permitted to wander around one of Team Rocket's top secret research facilities. Anari, completely oblivious to the odd looks she was being given, marched right up to where the food was served.

"I want one of those, please!" she chirped, pointing to a giant picture of a fruit smoothie hanging on the wall. The cafeteria cook stared at her, confused.

"Do it," Tyson commanded. "She's here on the boss's orders."

"She'll have to wait," the cook told him. "Namba just ordered two dozen fish sticks and I have to deliver them personally."

"That's what the grunts are for," Tyson told him.

"Tell that to Namba," the cook replied. "He sent a whole group of people down here to order him more fish sticks, then calls and tells me not to let any of 'em take the food back to him. He claims the last man I sent down ate all his food." Anari turned bright red.

"Preposterous," Tyson scoffed. "He probably ate them all himself and forgot. The man's insane."

"Many geniuses are, or so I'm told," the cook replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me."

Anari took a seat and put her head on the table. She wondered how long she would have to wait for her uncle and if he would still be mad at her when he arrived. She hoped not. "Please come get me soon," she whispered, wishing he was sitting in the empty seat across from her. _Please, Uncle Giovanni..._

"I have other duties to attend to. Will you be all right here alone?" Tyson asked her. Anari nodded.

"I'll be okay."

"Good. I'll come and collect you when the boss arrives," he said, before shouting, "MAKE WAY!"

Anari watched as the crowd of people again parted to let him through, then began listening to the various people as they conversed with one another. She closed her eyes and let the many voices swirl around in her head.

_...When I get reassigned I don't care if I ever see the ocean again! I'm so sick of looking at water I could..._

_...it was bigger than a house! I threw a Pokeball at it, but..._

_...I heard he actually REWARDED those imbeciles, and even gave them a paid vacation! Can you believe..._

_...was actually going to pit his water type against an electric type, but I told him..._

_...Butch and Cassidy? I just heard myself. The boss gave them a chance to redeem themselves but..._

Anari opened her eyes and tried to focus on that specific conversation.

_...They got arrested along with everyone else involved in the mission. Those two have the devil's luck. I bet Giovanni'll leave them to rot!_

Anari's heart sank. Her brother had always been afraid of going to prison, and the child assumed that anything that had the power to make her brother afraid must be very frightening indeed. Some of Antonio's men had been incarcerated before and none of them desired to return. Someone once told her that "bad things" happened to people there, and some were even put to death. Her eyes began to water.

_No!_

Anari clutched her fists, imagining Butch and Cassidy being left to die in some jail somewhere after they'd saved her life.

__No, no, no! _I can't let that happen!_

She thought of all her brother's former employees imprisoned at Team Rocket HQ and decided then and there that she couldn't allow them to be killed or "left to rot" either. She had to figure out how to help them all.

_I've got to do something! But what?_

. . .

By the time Tyson returned to retrieve Anari from the mess hall, Anari was sick of looking at the place. She'd been there two hours, and in that time she's had three smoothies, more fish sticks and a piece of chocolate cake. She also had a tummy ache.

_I'm never eating that many fish sticks again!_ she vowed as she stood at Tyson's left side waiting for her uncle to disembark from the submarine that had brought him there. She wondered how Namba's stomach felt after consuming the two dozen fish sticks he'd ordered. He and Sebastian were standing on the other side of Tyson and behind them was a row of agents standing in formation.

"Uncle!" Anari called out excitedly when Giovanni emerged.

"Welcome aboard, Sir," Namba said, but Team Rocket's leader barely heard him. He only had eyes for the little girl who was now running towards him. Before he had taken three steps the child was in his arms, hugging him for all she was worth.

"I missed you!" she informed him, burying her face in his shoulder as he embraced her.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, oblivious to the tears running down his face. "I'm so sorry for losing my temper."

"It's okay," she told him, clutching him tightly. "Family forgives."

"Are you all right?" Giovanni asked. "Butch and Cassidy didn't hurt you?"

"No, they SAVED me, Uncle! First the helicopter broke and we had to jump out of it, then we had to walk a looooooong way and steal a blimp, then we got stuck in a building and Butch hid me in the wall to keep the police from finding me and someone gave me a phone to call for help. Then they all got caught. You'll help them, won't you? You won't leave them all in jail?"

Giovanni sighed, realizing that his plan to get rid of Butch and Cassidy had backfired. Not only had it failed miserably, but he was now indebted to them for saving his niece's life. The very least he could do was bail them out. "No, I won't leave them in jail," he told the child. "We'll get everyone out."

Anari sighed with relief. "I'm so glad... I can't wait to go back home."

_Home._

She had just referred to Team Rocket Headquarters as home, and for the first time her mind and heart were both in agreement. She was going back where she belonged. She reached for her uncle's hand and grabbed it, squeezing it tightly. He squeezed back.

* * *

><p>To be continued in Chapter 4: "Twelve Men and a Little Lady"<p> 


	4. Twelve Men & A Little Lady

_After being rescued by Tyson, Anari is taken to Dr. Namba's underwater research base. While waiting for her uncle to pick her up, she vows to find a way to help those who have saved her life. After persuading her uncle to forgive Butch and Cassidy, her next self-appointed task is to free her brother's men imprisoned in the cells of Team Rocket Headquarters..._**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Home Is Where the R Is<strong>  
>Chapter Four - Twelve Men and a Little Lady<p>

. . .

The following morning, as Anari followed Giovanni to his office, she tried to think of a way to talk to him about her friends in the basement. She didn't want to make her uncle angry again, but her heart wouldn't allow her to continue to stand by and do nothing while her brother's former employees spent their days behind bars wondering what was going to happen to them. For the past week she'd felt helpless; a child trapped in a world of grown-ups ruled by a powerful man whose authority she was afraid to question. No longer. She had stood up to her uncle and kept him from committing murder once and she was certain that if she went about it the right way she could do it again. In one day she had survived jumping out of a helicopter, helped Butch and Cassidy steal a blimp and managed to conceal herself long enough to keep the police from discovering her during a raid. If she could do all that, she rationalized, surely she could help her friends... preferably _without_ having to go through all that again. She sat down on the floor with Persian, nuzzling against the Pokemon as she tried to come up with a plan. She couldn't think of one.

"Aren't you going to go play?" Giovanni asked, after a few minutes. Anari shook her head.

"I want to stay here with you."

Surprised, but pleased, Giovanni motioned for her to come near.

"Come over here then and I'll show you something worth seeing."

"Okay," Anari agreed, getting to her feet. "What do you want to show me, Uncle?"

Giovanni opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out an old photo. He handed it to her.

"Look at this."

It was a group of rough-looking teenagers posing in front of a chain link fence. She recognized her uncle immediately, despite the many years difference between the teenager in the photo and the middle-aged man currently in front of her. He was smirking in the picture as he stood in the middle of the group balancing a pokeball on his booted foot.

"This was your gang?"

"That's right."

She climbed up on her uncle's desk and examined the photo more carefully. There were only two females in the gang; a brown-haired young woman with a sweet face standing next to Giovanni and a black-haired young woman holding onto a large net that some unfortunate person was trapped in. Her eyes widened.

"Momma..." She looked up at her uncle questioningly. He nodded.

"Your mother was a member, too. That's how she met my brother. She had exceptional aim, both with a gun and a throwing net."

Having no memory of either of her parents and only one photo of them from when she was a baby, Anari had imagined them doing all sorts of things before they had died. Her mother might have been a sharp career woman, a loving homemaker, a tomboyish pokemon trainer, a rich fashion model or any number of other things. She had never imagined her in a gang before.

"Who's in the net she's holding?" Anari asked.

Giovanni laughed. "Your father."

Anari laughed as well.

"She loved snake-type pokemon," Giovanni told her. "Your father caught an Ekans once trying to impress her, but she laughed at him and told him that she already had two Ekans and an Arbok."

Anari shivered. She wondered if her mother would have loved snake-types as much if she'd known that one day her son would be strangled to death by one.

"That's 009's father there," Giovanni said, pointing to another man in the group.

"She doesn't look anything like him," Anari observed, "But that boy sitting next to him looks just like Mondo." She pointed to the youngest member of the gang, who couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen.

"Yes, definitely a case of generation Xerox," Giovanni agreed. "The resemblance between him and his son is uncanny."

"So this was Mondo's father." The boy in the photograph could have been Mondo's twin. They even had the same haircut. It was an eerie experience seeing this Mondo-clone in a photo taken more than two decades ago with her then teen-aged parents and uncle.

"He was called Lucky, and you might say he was our pet," Giovanni said. "He was an orphan that fell in with us after we tried to mug him. We couldn't catch him, but he said he'd give us all his worldly possessions if we let him join our group. Turns out "all his worldly possessions" consisted of three bottle caps, a pack of chewing gum he'd just lifted from a corner store and a white rock." Anari laughed at this. Her uncle reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a piece of quartz and laid it on his desk top. "Here's the rock."

"You still HAVE it?" Anari asked, amazed.

"Obviously. It's here, isn't it?"

Examining the various people in the photograph, Anari concluded that Mondo's father was the only one who truly looked like his offspring. She could see a (very) slight resemblance between herself and her mother, but the only physical trait she shared with her father was the same brown eyes. He had brown hair as well, but it was a darker shade than her own. The man her uncle pointed out as Domino's father looked nothing like his daughter at all; Anari would never have guessed that the two were related.

"Did everyone in your gang join Team Rocket?" the child asked, causing her uncle to frown as he looked at the young woman standing next to him in the photo. He had been quite fond of her, but she had been more fond of a young man keen on becoming the world's greatest Pokemon master.

"Almost everyone."

"You must have had lots of fun when you were young," Anari said.

"We did," Giovanni said, as he gazed at the image of his younger self. "They called me "The Ball-kicker" back then."

Anari raised an eyebrow. "Why did they call you that?"

"Because I kicked my pokeballs in battle to minimumize the reaction time."

"That's so cool!" Anari exclaimed, her eyes shining. "Can you teach me how to do that, Uncle?"

"I don't see why not," he grinned, pleased to see that he was beginning to bond with her.

"Can I... keep this?" the girl asked, holding up the photo.

"If you wish. I'll get you a frame for it if you'd like." Anari nodded.

"I want to show it to Mondo."

"He's seen it. I gave him a copy after his father died. Like I've told you before, this organization is like a family. We've got people working here who knew _my_ mother before I was born. Most are retired now, although we have a few still working in the labs or teaching at Team Rocket Academy."

_Like a family... _Anani took a deep breath, remembering when her brother had used similar words to describe his organization. "Uncle... there's something I want to talk to you about," she said, deciding now would be time to broach the subject she'd been wanting to discuss with him since the day she'd come to live with him. "Something important."

"What is it?"

Anari took another deep breath, steeling her resolve. "I know what you mean," she began slowly. "About people being like family. I know people like that, too."

"Oh?"

"Yes... and they need my help."

"And just who might these people be?" he inquired, genuinely curious.

"They're downstairs, locked in your cells."

. . .

The next day, twelve disheveled men clad in all black filed silently into Giovanni's office. They were accompanied by several armed grunts who'd brought them up from the cells below.

"Leave us," Giovanni ordered the guards. "Niko and Marco can handle any problems that might arise." The addition of a dozen men, particularly a dozen men who looked (and smelled) like they hadn't showered in over a week, was making his office feel rather congested.

The grunts eyed the aforementioned "bodyguards" standing behind their boss warily and promptly vacated the room. Marco and Niko were well known for their ability to make anything (or anyone) the Boss wanted gone disappear.

Anari, who was standing beside her seated uncle, was suddenly struck with the childish urge to run over to the group of prisoners and hold out her arms to be picked up and swung around as many of them had done before all their lives had changed so drastically. Giovanni spread out his right arm in front of her, as if sensing her thoughts. He motioned for her to remain where she was. A pregnant silence filled the air, until finally Giovanni spoke.

"Did any of you kill my brother?" he asked bluntly. He never had been one to beat around the bush.

Anari swallowed the lump in her throat, praying in her heart that her instincts were right. She just couldn't _believe_ that any of these people had helped her brother murder their parents. She didn't _want_ to believe it.

The eldest member of the group stepped forward to break the uneasy silence.

"No one here killed your brother," Henry told the stone-faced man seated in front of him, feeling it necessary to make his and his companions' lack of involvement in this matter perfectly clear without delay. "Only I and two other men here were even employed there at the time. The rest were hired months, some years, later."

"Which two?" Giovanni asked.

"I was," said one man, stepping forward to join the group's self-appointed spokesman. He sported several scars on his arms and face, one of which Anari had been present when he'd obtained it two years ago. He'd said something to anger her brother- she'd long since forgotten what- but she remembered vividly how Antonio had backhanded him across the cheek, drawing blood with the ring he always wore. She still couldn't remember the man's name.

"And I," said Kent, joining them.

Anari was glad her friend Dan was not one of them.

Giovanni carefully examined each of the three men's faces. _They aren't cowards, I'll give them that... _"Where are the remains of my brother and his wife?" he asked them, causing the blood to drain from Anari's face.

_Remains._

She was the one who'd pleaded with her uncle to do this, to at least talk to her brother's men and hear what they had to say, but now she wished she was anywhere but here doing anything but listening to this conversation. At the same time, she couldn't possibly be anywhere else.

"Answer me!" Giovanni demanded. All three pairs of eyes lowered, avoiding his gaze.

"We can't," Henry replied. "Not in front of the little one."

"You know?" Anari whispered, beginning to shake.

"Anari, leave the room," her uncle ordered.

"No."

It wasn't defiance- at least, it wasn't meant to be. Regardless of what her uncle- or indeed, Anari herself- may have wanted, at that moment she felt that she was no more capable of leaving the room than she was of cutting off her own foot. She _had_ to know what happened to her mother and father. She had to know the truth after a lifetime of lies. Much to Giovanni's chagrin the little girl went over to Henry and took the old man's hands. They looked like a grandfather with his cherished grandchild, but old Henry had never found time to have children, let alone grandchildren. He'd always been too busy, too involved in one criminal activity or another since the day he'd run away as a youth nearly fifty years ago. His hands had done great damage over the course of his lifetime, but looking into the eyes of the innocent young soul in front of him Henry had never been more thankful _not_ to have been party to this particular criminal act.

"Henry, you know?" Anari asked again. "You know where my family is?"

Henry looked away from her.

"I suggest you answer," Giovanni advised him, his patience thinning. He pulled out a gun.

To his surprise, all eleven of the younger men sprang into action, jumping in front of Henry and Anari. Marco and Niko pulled out their own weapons, but Giovanni told them not to fire. Despite the promise he'd made to himself to avoid exposing Anari to situations like this after the near-disastrous incident with Butch and Cassidy, he had yet again acted on his emotions without considering her presence. Again he silently resolved to be more mindful in the future.

"Put it away," the scarred man told him. His name was Antony, called Tony by most of those who knew him, and he didn't appear to be in the least bit frightened of having a loaded gun pointed at him.

For a split second Giovanni wondered if the men were foolishly going to attempt to take his niece hostage to use as a bargaining chip for their own lives and freedom, but the thought died almost as quickly as it entered his mind. Anari had pleaded with him to hold this meeting on the grounds that these people were also part of her "family" and he highly doubted she would feel so strongly on the matter if she had any reason to believe they'd harm her. Observing the tense scene in front of him, he finally reached the conclusion that the men were attempting to shield Henry (who he assumed they had appointed their new leader) from potential gunfire. He found it admirable that these young men were willing to die for a man twice, perhaps three times their age until Henry himself walked around the group and stood at its head.

"Not in front of the child," Henry commanded, looking his captor square in the eye as if he were the one in control of the situation and not the other way round.

Any protest Team Rocket's leader might have made regarding the audacity of the old man standing in front him died when Giovanni suddenly realized exactly what was going on. It wasn't the old man the rest of his nephew's former employees were trying to protect. They had formed a human blockade to shield Anari. Something in him stirred at the realization that every single man standing on the other side of his desk was willing to die to protect his niece.

_"They're part of my family, Uncle,"_ she had told him yesterday. _"Just like Team Rocket."_

"Anari, come here," he commanded, putting his weapon away. The sea of men parted and Dan walked up to him, holding Anari protectively in his arms. "Put her down," Giovanni ordered the younger man. Dan tightened his hold on the child and glared at him distrustfully.

"_Now_, Danial," Henry ordered, trying to diffuse the situation before it got out of hand. He'd had plenty of experience dealing with men like Giovanni over the years to know what could happen if it did.

"It's all right," Anari said softly. "Uncle Giovanni won't hurt me."

"Where I come from we don't wave guns around in the presence of children," Dan informed his captor coldly as he sat Anari down on his desk. This wasn't enirely true; Anari had seen her brother and his men "wave guns around" on several occaisions.

"No one in this room is in a position of moral superiority, young man," Giovanni informed him. "If you, _any_ of you, were this concerned about my niece's welfare you shouldn't have left her in the care of a psychopath."

"We don't have a choice," Dan replied defiantly. "You're holding us at gun point."

Giovanni growled at the brazen insult, but forced himself to remain calm. He motioned for Niko and Marco to put their guns away, and ordered Dan away from his desk. The younger man obeyed him reluctantly, keeping a wary eye on Marco and Niko as he rejoined the group.

"Perhaps we _should_ have taken Anari from Antonio when it became apparent how mentally unstable he was," Henry told his captor. "But to what end? She would have been deprived of the only family she had left."

"She had family HERE!" Giovanni shouted, stabbing at his over-priced desk with his index finger. "My nephew murdered my brother to take his place in the family while the three of you did _nothing!"_ This was directed at Henry, Kent and Tony. "YOU allowed him to go underground with his kidnapped sister and the entire LOT of you allowed him to abduct my agents and assault them in that dungeon he called an office. You _should_ have given him a sound beating instead of letting him anywhere _near_ this child!"

"Antonio Gambini was our leader," Kent responded this time. "It was our duty to obey him, not question his motives or his mental competence. Would _you_ tolerate such behavior in _your_ subordinates? I highly doubt it."

Giovanni could not argue the point, nor did he have any desire to. The entire interrogation had gotten completely off-topic.

"I'm going to ask you for the last time: where is my brother?"

Henry sighed heavily. "The last time I saw my former employer the whole family was boarding a plane for an expedition to some island or another. Only Antonio and baby Maria returned."

Maria was Anari's birth name, before her brother had changed it and given them both the last name of Gambini. Giovanni still cringed every time she used her surname, but the child was resolute. Everything else in her life had changed, she refused to lose her name as well. She had been "Anari Gambini" for as long as she could remember.

"Tony here was with them that day," Kent said, pointing to the scarred man as he continued the story. Tony looked away from them. "But he was half-alive when they returned, and he couldn't remember anything when he regained consciousness. His partner had also vanished, and we were told they'd all been killed by wild Pokémon. Henry suspected foul play, but as his father's heir, Antonio was now our leader. It wasn't our place to question him."

"Which he made abundantly clear," Tony added grimly, fingering a series of long scars on his arm. He remembered exactly what had happened on that plane, but he'd never told anyone about the horrific events of that tragic day. Antonio had beaten him almost to death and threatened to cut out his tongue.

"Did he give you ALL these?" Anari asked him softly. He was within arm's reach of where she was sitting and she reached out to touch a scarred arm.

"Yes," he replied curtly, and backed out of her reach. Anari had no scars of her own, and she suddenly wondered if having one was like having cut or scratch that never healed and went away. Did his old wounds still hurt him?

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"You don't remember _anything?_" Giovanni asked, gazing at Tony.

Tony began to shake, and he gripped his arms in an attempt to control himself.

_I'll cut out your tongue to keep it from wagging, Antony, remember that!_

For five years he had kept silence; kept in fear with threats and physical abuse. Every scar he bore told a story of pain inflicted on him to keep that fear fresh in his mind. Even dead, Antonio Gambini ruled his thoughts and actions, as if the man might rise from the grave and seek vengeance on him.

"Answer me," Giovanni commanded. "You know _something._"

Tony stared at the man, who stared back, unblinking. He felt like a Pichu cornered by an Arbok. He had no doubt that his deceased employer's uncle was capable of inflicting great pain on him to get the information he wanted, and the morbid irony that the information Giovanni sought was the very thing Tony had been tortured for years to keep from revealing did not escape him.

_If you cross me I'll make you wish you were never born!_

Strange how he could have no fear of Giovanni's gun, but the memory of a dead man's threats made him want to crawl under something and hide.

"Yes, I do," he admitted slowly, deciding that attempting to deceive the man in front of him would be both foolish and futile. He tried to quickly decide how much of the story to tell to satisfy Giovanni without going into details that would not be in his- or the child's- best interest to reveal. Giovanni would kill him for his involvement in the matter and as for the girl...

_I'll break her arm if you don't. I'll tell them you did it._

He didn't have the heart to tell the seven year-old child sitting on the desk in front of him that her brother had threatened her personal safety to get him and his partner to cooperate.

"Go on," Giovanni said in an even tone, careful not to betray any emotion.

"On that plane," Tony began slowly. "I... I saw."

"Saw what?" Anari and Giovanni both asked.

Tony closed his eyes, replaying that dreadful day in his mind. He'd been 17 at the time, eager to prove himself and confident that he could handle anything. Oh, how quickly he'd learned differently! Now in front of him sat another young soul who was about to receive a rude awakening. Life could be very, very cruel.

"The old boss and his wife- they were forced out of the plane at gun point."

"Forced out where?" Giovanni asked, suddenly hopeful that perhaps Antonio had merely taken them to some remote area and abandoned them. If that were the case, he could deploy every resource under Team Rocket's command to find them and bring them home.

"Over the ocean," Tony responded, dashing Giovanni's new-found hope. "They were forced out while the plane was in mid-flight."

Anari began to weep silently, as did old Henry. Giovanni clutched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white.

"Why didn't you ever TELL us?" Kent shouted, causing Tony to cringe.

"He shot my partner and dumped his body out of the plane!" Tony told him, gripping one of his scarred arms with his hand. "_After_ he beat me senseless and threatened to cut out my tongue!"

_I can't take anymore, please stop, stop hitting me I can't breathe..._

He tried to shake the memories, and failed.

_Too much blood. Someone help me, I'm going to die!_

He remembered gasping for air, choking on his own blood until he finally vomited. He'd been certain he was going to drown in it. He'd grown up in an abusive household, but his alcoholic father and mentally unstable mother couldn't hold a candle to Antonio Gambini. He had no doubt Antonio could have easily beaten his parents to death. Gambini had only been two years older than Tony himself, but the difference in physical strength had been substantial. That day, and the many, many miserable days that followed, he'd felt that power; forced to submit to it over and over...

_I'll do anything, please don't kill me!_

"Antony, you're shaking," Henry observed. He put his hands on the younger man's shoulders. "That's enough, calm down."

There was more to the tale, but Tony was done talking. He neglected to mention that he'd been holding one of those guns, albeit against his will.

_Do you think they'll believe YOU over ME? If you don't do as I say... I'll tell them I saw you both with her, that you broke her arm trying to... Father would kill you two long before the cops had a chance to lock you up!_

Tony repressed a shudder. He'd always wondered what would have happened if he and his partner had chosen to call the madman's bluff. He almost had; but his partner, several years older with an infant child of his own, had been unwilling to risk baby Maria's safety. The fool had always been too soft for his own good. He'd tried to save his employers in the end, and had been killed for his efforts. None of them could possibly understand what Tony had lived through, and he feared if they knew of his full involvement in the matter they wouldn't even try.

_I didn't want to do it... I tried to save them, but..._

Suddenly he felt small arms wrap around his waist. He opened his eyes, not even realizing he'd shut them, to find Anari embracing him.

"It's not your fault, Tony," she said softly.

_But it is..._

"I'm sorry," he whispered, stroking the child's hair, before turning again to face Giovanni. "These men knew nothing. If you want someone to blame I'll take responsibility. Let them go."

Giovanni stared at him, and for a split second Tony saw the face of Antonio Gambini staring back at him. He blinked and the image was gone, much to his relief.

"Bring Viper in here," Giovanni ordered Marco, who promptly left the room. He turned back to the dozen prisoners standing in front of his desk. "For the love of Anari the lot of you are standing here instead of being used for target practice or sent down to the labs- we've had a severe shortage of specimens as of late- and for the love of Anari I'm giving each of you a choice: Join Team Rocket, or die."

"Uncle!" Anari exclaimed, but Giovanni was resolute.

"It was oversight on my part that you were left undealt with for so long," he continued. "I will not continue to feed you at my expense, nor will I release you into the world where you can contact the authorities or otherwise jeopardize my operation. Against my better judgement I'm erring on the side of generosity, for the sake of my niece who wishes for you to live."

Marco re-entered the room joined by a stern-looking man sporting a purple mohawk.

"This is Drill Sargent Viper," Giovanni told them. "I've ordered a jet fueled and ready to go. Viper here will escort any new recruits to Team Rocket's training academy. Anyone who chooses to reject my very generous offer will follow Niko and Marco... elsewhere."

Anari's hands gripped Tony's shirt nervously. "Uncle Giovanni..." Her uncle ignored her.

"Understand that this organization does not conduct business in the same manner as your former employer," he continued. "I will not tolerate incompetence, nor will I allow the sexual... _infractions_ apparently committed on a regular basis by my nephew. You will be paid according to your worth upon completing Team Rocket's training program, which Viper here is in charge of. Prove yourselves and you will be given full agent status, and will suffer no discrimination based on your previous employment."

"And if someone here fails?" Henry asked.

"Failure is not an option."

"Some here might not be physically able to complete the training course," the old man argued. "Myself included. I worked for your brother, I _know_ the requirements at Team Rocket's training school. I'd have to be thirty years younger to have any hope of completing the course, and I doubt Lou here would be able to fit under that barbed wire."

Lou turned red, rubbing his round stomach. Bookkeeping wasn't an occupation that included a lot of physical activity, but it _had_ provided him with plenty of time to pursue his favorite hobby: snacking.

"Other accommodations can be made for those not suitable for the field," Viper told him.

Anari didn't know what _accommodations_ were, but she hoped they didn't involved Marco, Niko and their guns.

"The choice is yours," Giovanni finished, with a tone of finality that made it clear that the interview was over.

Anari held her breath, silently praying that her brother's former employees would be willing to convert. She'd done everything she could to convince her uncle to spare their lives, but if they refused the offer he'd made even she wouldn't be able to save them. _Everyone, please..._

Giovanni expected them each to answer seperately, or perhaps huddle together and discuss the matter. Instead, the entire group looked at the eldest of their number, waiting for him to speak. His decision would be their own. Henry closed his eyes and sighed, before opening them and looking Giovanni square in the face.

"Where do we sign up?"

* * *

><p>To be continued in Chapter 5: "Mondo's Assistant<p> 


	5. Mondo's Assistant

**Author's note:** This chapter takes place during "Mewtwo Strikes Back". For those who have never seen it, Giovanni and Domino attempt (and fail) to recapture Mewtwo, only to have their memories of the incident erased in the end.

* * *

><p><em>Having finally managed to save her friends imprisoned at Team Rocket Headquarters, Anari finally begins to settle into her new life with her uncle Giovanni. However...<em>

**Home Is Where the R Is**  
>Chapter Five - Mondo's Assistant<p>

.

"I can't believe he just LEFT me here!" Anari complained to Mondo, sitting on a crate of supplies he was due to deliver. "He barely said a word to me the whole day yesterday, and then he just LEFT!"

"So where'd the boss go?" Mondo inquired.

"I don't know," Anari said. "Yesterday he sent Domino on some top secret mission, then last night he and Persian left in his helicopter." Anari recalled the obsessive determination in her uncle's eyes as he brushed past her with barely a glance to take off for parts unknown.

"The Team Rocket Combat Squad left, too," Mondo said. "Then later orders came for the rest of the air squad to follow, and bring a construction crew. Something big must be going down."

"I wonder what's going on?"

"Beats me," Mondo shrugged. "I'll be covering for my superiors today, since they've all gone." It irked him that he wasn't senior enough to go with them, but he was somehow senior enough to be stuck running the entire delivery division by himself. He had 17 requests to fill before the day was out, all of which were off-base. His Ditto had transformed into a Primape to help him load boxes, which he was stuffing into a large black bag.

"How does that all FIT in there?" Anari wanted to know.

"It's a storage system that works kind of like a pokéball," he explained. "It's the only way all this stuff will fix into the jeep."

"I'll come with you," Anari offered. She often kept him company while he filled orders, and she had no desire to wander around Team Rocket Headquarters when the place was practically empty. It had the air of a ghost town, and it gave the seven year-old the creeps. Mondo had no objection to her company- in fact, he welcomed it. Having someone to talk to always made his day go by faster, plus he could use the extra pair of hands.

"Thanks," he replied gratefully as she jumped down. He handed her a small box to carry out to the jeep. "Hold this." He grabbed the crate she'd been sitting on and Ditto helped him stuff it into the bag. "Thanks, Ditto," he told his Pokémon appreciatively, before recalling it to its pokéball. He then picked up the sack (which appeared to be completely empty) and motioned for Anari to follow him outside. "Come on. I'm sure everyone will be back before long."

.

Mondo's first stop was to purchase a random newspaper from a vending machine.

"Hold that," he told Anari, handing it to her. "We'll need it in a moment."

Anari was more interested in the box on her lap. It contained several small square devices. She held one up to examine it more closely. "What are these things?" she asked.

"Messages," Mondo explained. "Each has a recording on it for a specific agent or team of agents working off-base. I deliver them to an undercover operative and she hands them out to Rockets who come in for their assignments. Be careful with them; they self-destruct after one use."

"They don't blow up, do they?" Anari asked, returning the one she was holding to the box gingerly.

"No, they dissolve."

"How can you tell them apart?" she inquired. "They all look the same."

"Beats me. I just deliver them. There!" He pointed to the building they were approaching.

"A hamburger restaurant?" the child asked, confused. "We just ate a little while ago."

"You'll see." Mondo pulled into the parking lot and Anari watched nervously as he rolled the devices up into the newspaper and secured it with a rubber band. "Come on!"

Anari got out of the vehicle and followed him inside.

"Welcome to the Hamburger!" the young woman behind the counter greeted them cheerfully when they walked in the door. "How may I help you?"

Mondo held up the newspaper containing the devices. "I'm delivering newspapers in the neighborhood. Here you go."

Anari watched as the woman took it from him, flashing him a secret smile. "Thank you very much, sir. Please send my regards to your employer." She handed Mondo something that might have been a coin, but he shoved it in his pocket before the Anari could get a good look at it.

"You can expect your next issue around the same time next week," Mondo told her. "Remember, I deliver at rocket speed!"

"Have a Happy Burger day!" she told them, before moving on to serve a paying customer. Mondo and Anari left.

"I've seen her before, " Anari remarked as they got back in the jeep. "She was at Domino's birthday party the other day. What did she give you?"

"A message for the boss," Mondo replied, fishing the object out of his pocket and handing it to her. Anari recognised it as one of the same message recording devices she'd watched Mondo roll into the newspaper.

"Will it explode?" Anari asked nervously.

"They don't explode, they dissolve," Mondo explained again. "Put it in the glove compartment."

Anari did so. "How many more deliveries do we have?"

"Too many," he sighed. "In Kanto _and_ Johto. Apparently a number of agents from the Johto base were called away as well. Where's that map?" He took his eyes off the road to look for it, and nearly ran over a group of Oddish crossing the road.

"Watch out!" Anari exclaimed.

Mondo redirected his attention to the road, making a sharp turn to avoid hitting a lone Gloom. Anari's stomach lurched. He finally located his map (he'd been sitting on it the entire time) and made yet another sharp turn, this time to avoid missing the street they needed to turn onto.

"Slow down!" Anari pleaded, fighting a sudden bout of nausea. "Are you old enough to drive?" she asked doubtfully.

"Been doing it since I was thirteen," her companion replied proudly.

"But do you have a _license_?"

"I've got something that will pass for one if we get stopped by Officer Jenny. Got it from the same department that makes everyone's Team Rocket membership cards."

She gave him a doubtful look, and her stomach lurched again when he made a very sudden stop at a red light and she was very nearly thrown into the windshield.

"I'm getting carsick," the child whined pitifully.

"Don't worry," Mondo assured her. "We're almost there."

Anari quickly buckled her seat belt before the car started moving again, silently promising herself not to forget to do so again as long as Mondo was behind the wheel. "Don't get us killed!" she ordered, with as much sternness as a seven year-old could muster. She liked being alive, and she wanted to stay that way!

.

Over the next few hours Anari learned that Mondo wasn't _always_ a bad driver. Despite his tender age of fifteen years he could drive just as well as any adult so long as he kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. The problem was that he had a tendency to get distracted- a lot. When that occurred, Anari genuinely feared for the safety of every living thing on the road, especially herself. He'd barely missed hitting three trees, a street sign and a fire hydrant when his (and Anari's) attention wandered to the various Pokémon they passed by. Anari had at one point offered to try driving the jeep herself, but Mondo laughed and pointed out that the seven year-old's feet wouldn't reach the pedals. He'd made a greater effort to pay attention since then, at least.

"Let's see," Anari said to herself sometime later, glad to be out of the jeep for awhile as she sat outside next to it with a pencil and a piece of paper. It was a list of people Mondo had to make deliveries to. "We did her- check, and a him- check, and Bonnie and Clyde- check, and him, and them, and them, and them, too... and we just did her. We're over half-way done!" she informed Mondo cheerfully.

Mondo was currently in the process of trying to fix a battered motorcycle. They had just finished their eighth delivery when he received orders to answer an emergency call of an agent in distress. All the repair crews who usually attended to such matters had disappeared along with practically everyone else on Giovanni's mysterious mission. The person in distress, however, was anything but grateful for the assistance.

"It's USELESS!" he roared at Mondo, as if it were Mondo's fault the motorcycle had crashed into a tree.

"Of course it is," Mondo agreed cheerfully, ignore the man's foul temper. "You wrecked it!"

The man glared at him. "Just fix it, boy. I've got an assignment to finish."

"What kind of assignment?" Anari asked, coming over to them.

"Mind your own damned business!"

Anari blinked, surprised. Her uncle's employees were generally not in the habit of swearing at her. She took a seat near Mondo and, for the moment, minded her own damned business.

"Hurry up, kid," the agent told Mondo impatiently, after a few more minutes had passed.

"I'm not sure I can," Mondo responded.

"Why the hell not?"

"The boss ordered all of Team Rocket's repair crews stationed at Headquarters to join him on a mission off base," Mondo explained. "I'm from the delivery division. I'm not sure I know _how_ to repair it."

"I've got to get to the next city before my target, or he'll get to the cops before I can take him out!"

"Take him out where?" Anari asked.

"Hey, come help me," Mondo interrupted, before the man could answer the little girl's question. He really didn't think the boss would appreciate his niece hearing about the missions of assassins, especially considering how she'd reacted the _last_ time he'd tried to kill someone. Niko had told several people on base the story of how the hysterical child's pleading managed to save Butch and Cassidy from emanate demise, and the story had evolved as it passed from person to person until it became known as "a legendary battle of wills" between the child and her uncle, with the seven year-old coming out on top. Mondo had a feeling the boss would not be pleased if he heard the story told that way.

"Fix it yourself, boy," the agent responded. "That's why you're here. The boss didn't hire me as a mechanic."

"I meant _her_," Mondo said, pointing to Anari as he attempted to do as he was told. The faster they got this man on his way the better. "Hold these," he instructed the little girl, handing her several tools. They were surprisingly heavy.

"What is this organization coming to," the aggravated assassin bemoaned, "when the most a man in my position can expect for aid is a pair of half-witted children?"

Mondo ignored the insult. He was used to being the target of verbal abuse by higher ranking agents. Anari, whose attention was still absorbed by the weight of the tools in her hands, didn't hear him. They were just so _heavy_. She was greatly relieved when Mondo finally took them back.

"What's your name?" Anari asked the assassin, going over to him.

"Sicarious," he responded.

"I'm Anari," she introduced herself. "Anari Gambini."

"Ah, you're Giovanni's niece."

Anari nodded. "Where are you going to take that guy when you finally catch him?"

"Generally I dump the bodies in a nearby river, but occasionally the boss orders me to bring the corpse back to prove they're really dead."

Mondo groaned, wondering how in the world he was going to repair the emotional damage done to the little girl once they sent this lunatic on his way. He also didn't want to be the one to explain to Giovanni if she went into hysterics and ran off into the blue. Fortunately for him, the child showed no signs of doing either.

"You kill people for a living?" she asked. "Like Marco and Niko?"

"Those two couldn't eliminate a cardboard box," Sicarious replied scornfully. "Unless someone put a stone in it first to weigh it down."

"Why do you say that?" Anari asked. Her uncle seemed to have full confidence in the two men's skills, and most of the agents on base were terrified of them. Niko had a few friends (Marco deemed socializing a waste of time) but in general people gave them both a wide berth, as if getting too close to the pair might prove hazardous to one's health.

"It's easy to kill people who are tied up or held at gun point," Sicarious told her. "Anyone can do that. YOU could do it. But tracking your target, ascertaining the right time and place, and disposing of the mess afterwards- that takes REAL skill. Two-bit hit men can never hold a candle to a professional assassin, girl."

"I wouldn't want a job like that," Anari remarked. Mondo agreed with her.

"Not many would," Sicarious said. "It's a grim enterprise to be sure, but profitable none the less. Nothing alters the course of mankind's future moreso than death, and men will pay a fortune to be masters of it."

"I'd say nothing destroys people's future quicker than death," Mondo responded dryly.

"Which is why they seek to master it."

"Everyone dies," Anari said, trying not to think of the people she had lost forever to the unyielding, unforgiving scythe of the Reaper. "People can't control that."

"Can't they?" Sicarious asked. "The business of death might seem like a dark and doubtful undertaking, but those with money and power have ways of overcoming the limitations of normal men. People like your uncle."

"That's enough," Mondo told him sternly. He held up a burned-out piece of machinery that Anari didn't recognize. "Several parts need replacing and I don't have them on hand. You'll have to accompany us back to HQ and wait until one of the repair crews get back."

"The hell I will! My mark will be long gone and _I'm_ not going to take the blame for the mission failing!"

"YOU'RE the one who crashed your vehicle into a tree!" Mondo shot back, his patience thinning.

"Couldn't we just buy new motorcycle parts at the store?" Anari asked.

"Of course not!" Sicarious snapped at her. "If you were hungry, would you go into a hardware store to buy a sandwich?"

"Hardware stores don't sell sandwiches," Anari responded, confused.

"Exactly!"

Anari turned to Mondo for clarification. "All of Team Rocket's vehicles are custom made," he told her. "You can't always buy the necessary parts at a local store."

"If my target leads the feds to the secret base he discovered everyone there will be arrested!" Sicarious shouted. "I'm _not_ taking responsibly for this!"

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do," Mondo said. "We'll have to contact the base and tell them to evacuate the building. If we act fast enough they might be able to get everyone out."

"And what about my _money?_" Sicarious demanded, furious that he'd wasted so much time and effort on a mission that he obviously wasn't going to profit from.

"There's nothing I can do," Mondo said again.

Sicarious stalked over to the motorcycle and kicked it, knocking it over. Mondo, who was on the other side, got knocked over with it.

"Ow!"

Sicarious began ranting in frustration, while Anari stared up at the sky, lost in thought. She knew her uncle committed crimes, and had even killed people. It was something she tried not to think about because when she did it always reminded her of...

_Big Brother._

Were the two really so different? She wanted to say yes, but she wasn't sure if that conclusion wasn't just wishful thinking on her part. Did she have a place in such a family? She wondered if all of her relatives had been the same, or if there had ever been people on her family tree who had been more interested in making friends and having fun than accumulating wealth and power.

_Will I someday turn into somebody like my uncle?_ she wondered. _Just... evolve, like a Pokémon?_

A cloud resembling an Eevee floated by peacefully and she smiled at it. The future might be uncertain, but one thing she knew for sure: Today someone somewhere had escaped being murdered and dumped in a river like all the rest of Sicarious's unfortunate victims, and whether it meant a lot of people were going to be inconvenienced by a last-minute evacuation or not, she was glad of it. Bases might expensive to rebuild, but lives were priceless.

_Maybe someday I can make Uncle Giovanni understand it, too._

She could always hope.

.

"Bye! It was nice to meet you!" Anari waved cheerfully to the elderly Team Rocket recruitment scout as they drove away. "And bye to you too, Delibird!"

The petite old woman had a brand new pocket calculator in her hand and a shiny new laptop tucked under her arm. "Thanks, kids!" she called back.

"That was the final name on the list," Mondo said, crumbling up the piece of paper and tossing it over his shoulder. "Thank goodness! Supplying agents in both Kanto AND Johto is way too much work. I'll never complain about being assigned to the Kanto region ever again!"

"She sure was nice, wasn't she?" Anari remarked. "I've never seen a grown-up that short!"

"I can't believe she tried to recruit us into Team Rocket!" Mondo said. "I know I'm not her usual delivery agent, but you'd think my uniform would be a dead giveaway!"

"I like her Delibird," Anari said. "But I _don't_ like its presents!" Her clothes were now singed from the Pokémon's exploding "gifts".

"Me neither," Mondo agreed. His uniform was in a similar condition. "It's no wonder her electronic equipment needed replaced." He tossed a blackened lump of metal that had once been a pocket calculator into the back of the jeep. "I feel sorry for the guy normally assigned to supply her. Delibird must keep him busy."

"I bet!"

"I'm just glad we're almost done," Mondo said with a relieved sigh.

"Almost done? I thought that was the last person on the list."

"That was a list of agents. My last delivery isn't connected to Team Rocket."

"Who is he?" Anari asked, puzzled.

"She," Mondo corrected her. "Every three months I deliver a pension check to a nice old lady. I've got a letter for her this time, too."

"Who is she?" Anari asked.

"Mrs. Maria Russo. She's an old friend of the boss's. I don't know how the two are connected, but he's been sending her money for years. She always gives me cookies when I bring her check to her."

"Do you think she'll let me have one?" Anari asked. She was starting to get hungry.

"I don't see why not. The boss said I was to take you with me next time I went, but he never explained why."

"I wish we knew where he'd gone," Anari said sadly. "Then we could ask him.

"Hey, cheer up," Mondo told her. "He's gotta come back eventually, right?"

Anari smiled. "Right."

.

Maria Russo lived on the border of Kanto and Johto, and Anari was absolutely charmed by her house. It was surrounded by at least half a dozen different flowers Anari had never seen before, and in the golden evening the place had an air of magic about it. It looked like a cottage out of a fairy tale.

"It's so pretty," the child remarked to no one in particular as she stared, spell-bound.

"Why thank you!" a cheery voice remarked. "Keeping a nice garden takes a lot of effort, so it's always nice to gets compliments!" The voice belonged to an old woman with a Furret on her shoulder, who'd been in the process of trimming a bush. "You're late today, Mondo," she chided gently. "I've been expecting you for hours. And your clothes are in terrible shape!"

"I had a lot of work today," he explained. "The boss has almost everybody called away on some assignment and I got left to do all the deliveries by myself."

"It took all day!" Anari agreed.

"And who are you, dear?" the old lady inquired.

"I'm Mondo's friend," Anari chirped cheerfully.

"This is Anari," Mondo explained. "The boss insisted on me bringing her next time I came, but he didn't say why. He told me to give you this."

He handed her the envelope containing her check and letter, and was invited to come inside and have a seat. So was Anari.

"Have some cookies, sweethearts, while I read my letter. I'm afraid they aren't as warm as they would have been if you've come earlier, but I daresay they're still tasty enough. Furret's been trying to steal them for hours."

Anari quickly took a cookie in each hand, and Mondo took one as well.

"This is one of my favorite assignments," he confided as Anari took a bite out of each cookie. "The boss ordered me to assist Mrs. Russo with any heavy errands or household chores she required whenever I visit, so I can stay as long as I want. I got out of having to do the monthly inventory last time I was here because she needed help fixing the roof!" Taking inventory was Mondo's least favorite chore and he took every opportunity possible to get out of it.

Maria's hands began to tremble as she read the contents of the letter she was holding. Her eyes blurred and she wiped the tears away, stealing several unnoticed glances at Anari while the child conversed with Mondo.

"We should have come here first then," Anari told him. "Then we could have gotten out of making all those deliveries!"

"But then I would have had to do them all tomorrow, on top of all tomorrow's deliveries," Mondo pointed out. "At least we got everything done."

"Mondo, look at that," Anari said, pointing to a picture hanging on the wall. It was a family portrait.

"What about it?" Mondo asked. He'd seen it many times. In fact, he was the one who'd hung it there on a previous visit when he'd helped to rearrange the furniture.

"The little girl in the picture..." Anari began, and Mondo suddenly realized why it had caught her attention. Despite a slight in difference in age and hair color, the girl in the picture could have been Anari herself.

"It's... me."

"No dear," the old woman told her as she laid down the letter. "That's me when I was a girl."

"Her hair is darker, but... she looks like me."

"Yes, she does," Maria agreed. "You look just like your grandmother."

Anari blinked. "Huh?"

"Your mother was my daughter."

"You're... Momma's momma?"

Maria nodded. "Yes, that's right."

"But Uncle Giovanni said my grandma was dead."

"He was probably talking about his own mother," Mondo told her. "Madame Boss died a few years ago."

"Come here, let me get a closer look at you," Maria said. "I haven't seen you since you were THIS small!" She pointed to a framed baby picture, which Anari (rightfully) guessed was herself as an infant. "I wasn't certain that you or your brother were still alive."

Anari looked away. "Big Brother's not. Not anymore."

"That's what your uncle says in his letter. How did he die?"

Anari clutched the cookie in her left hand so hard that it crumbled onto the carpet. "I... I don't want to talk about it." _I don't want to think about it. I'm tired of thinking about it. It hurts too much._

"I understand," Maria nodded. "There came a point in my life when I took all of my photographs and packed them away. Pictures of my parents, my husband, my daughter... I couldn't bear to keep looking at them knowing I would never see the people I love again. It was too painful."

"Your pictures are out now," Anari said, pointing to a collection of framed photographs on both her in-tables. There were three baby photos, two wedding pictures (one was of her mother and father in their wedding clothes), one of a little girl holding an Ekans that she strongly suspected was her mother as a child, and some old black and white pictures of people Anari didn't know.

"Yes," Maria agreed. "I knew I was ready to take them out when the thought of seeing everyone's faces made me want to smile instead of cry."

"That's Momma and Daddy when they got married, isn't it?" Anari asked, pointing to the wedding picture.

Maria nodded, picking up it up. "Yes... I still wonder where they are sometimes," she confessed to her granddaughter, handing her the picture so she could examine it more closely. "Especially late at night. If they were ever found... given a decent burial... Maybe it's better not to know."

Anari nodded, debating whether or not she should tell the kindly old lady in front of her how her grandson had forced her daughter and son-in-law out of a moving plane to plummet goodness only knew how many hundreds of feet into the waiting sea. She decided not to. Part of her wished she had never learned the truth about what had happened, and she didn't want to make anyone else as sad as she felt. Perhaps her grandmother was right: Maybe it was better not to know.

"I don't have many pictures of my family," Anari said, handing the photo back to her. Maria placed it back on the in-table. "But looking at them makes me sad."

Maria nodded understandingly. "Well then, I have an idea."

"What is it?" Anari asked.

Maria opened the drawer of the in-table and pulled out a camera. "Why don't we take some pictures that will make us smile instead?"

The next hour or two proved to be the happiest Anari had experienced in a long time. The three each took turns using Maria's old-fashioned Polaroid, and Anari soon had a pile of photos to take home. She had photos of herself with her grandmother, and with Mondo and even one (that she'd taken herself and was quite proud of) of Maria with Furret posing on her shoulder. Maria also had a collection of new photographs, and there was one of herself with Anari and Furret that Mondo had taken of them now sitting framed on an in-table with all the rest of her treasured memories.

The plate of cookies was soon empty, so Maria took the youngsters out back to help her milk her Miltank. Anari had never seen that particular Pokémon before, and was amazed when like magic there were soon three tall glasses of fresh milk for them to drink. They went back in the house and Maria produced a tin of scones for them to polish off next. It wasn't quite as filling as a proper supper, but Anari hadn't enjoyed a meal so much in a long time. She'd also developed a new appreciation for milk, which up until that point she had thought of as a bland excuse for a drink.

They talked about a variety of things- Anari's favorite colors, what Pokémon she'd like to train one day, and which subjects she liked and disliked now that her uncle had her taking lessons. Maria in turn told her all about her interest in flowers (something Anari also loved, although she could name very few), different Pokémon she had trained throughout the years, and how she and Furret met one day when the Pokémon crawled in her open window taking shelter from the rain.

"And ate an entire basket of muffins I'd just baked for my new neighbor!" she added, with feigned annoyance. Anari and Mondo laughed.

After a while, the subject drifted to Lilas, Anari's mother. Apparently, as a girl of seventeen, she had randomly come home one night with Anari's father Giuseppe, declaring that they were going to get married.

"SHE proposed to HIM, apparently," Maria laughed. "She always was a headstrong girl. We had some misgivings at first, her father and I, due to the strange rumors floating around about the boy's family being involved in criminal activity. The fact that the two brothers were in some sort of gang didn't help."

Anari and Mondo exchanged glances. Maria was obviously not aware of the inner workings of Team Rocket.

"Their mother owned a big corporation that made rockets or something, and after your parents vanished she sent one of her employees here with a letter telling me that I would be receiving a pension four times a year in compensation for the loss of my daughter and grandchildren. My husband had died not long before then, and she knew I had no other relatives to support me. I suppose she felt sorry for me, being a mother and grandmother herself. When her eldest son inherited the business he continued to honor her arrangement, and I'm forever grateful for his thoughtfulness and generosity."

Mondo asked Maria to pass the tin of scones his way and she complied, before continuing her praise of Giovanni.

"Not everyone would remember an old widow," Maria told the children. "Particularly when they have no blood ties or legal obligation. I've only seen Giovanni a few times, but like his mother he's seen to it that I don't want for anything. One of his employees shows up every three months like clockwork to see that all my needs are being met, and when I wrote him telling him how helpful Mondo was and how much I enjoyed his company, he's sent Mondo to me ever since. What a good man he is!"

Anari raised an eyebrow. A good man? Was her grandmother talking about the same man who ordered Sicarious to kill people and dump their bodies in a river? The same man who'd employed Marco and Niko to make people who displeased him "disappear"?

Mondo remarked that the boss had been very good to him as well, particularly after the death of his father.

Anari considered this. There was far more to her uncle then his faults, she knew that, but his faults were just so... _extreme_. Nevertheless, he was also the man who tucked her into bed at night, wishing her pleasant dreams. He was the same man who'd taken her in and given her a home, and given a home and jobs to her brother's former employees upon her request. He was the trainer Persian loved dearly, and the boss everyone at Team Rocket admired and respected. And now she'd learned he was her grandmother's benefactor.

_Is he good or bad?_ Anari wondered. Good men didn't have people killed. Bad men didn't care for elderly widows and orphaned children. Yet her uncle did both. _Can he be good AND bad?_ she thought, wondering if such a thing were even possible. She just didn't know.

.

On the way back home, clutching the thank-you letter her grandmother had written for her uncle, Anari discussed her thoughts with Mondo.

"I guess it depends on your perspective," Mondo told her. She had no idea what perspective was, and she didn't ask. Mondo continued. "He's good to those he feels deserve his loyalty, but he makes a bad enemy to anyone who threatens him or anything he values. Dad once told me the boss was fiercely protective, and that it never paid to get on his bad side."

"Protecting the people you love is good," Anari said. "But hurting people is bad."

"Sometimes you can't protect people without hurting someone else," Mondo responded. "When I was little I nearly got trampled by a herd of Tauros. My father sent out his Charizard to force the herd away, but the Tauros panicked and didn't go in the direction Charizard intended them to. They ran straight over a cliff and died. All except one."

"What happened to that one?" Anari asked, sad to think of an entire herd of Pokémon jumping to their deaths. The sole survivor must have been lonely.

Mondo pointed to one of the pokéballs clipped to his belt. "I've still got it."

They were both silent for a moment, and Anari considered how that poor Tauros must have felt after the loss of its family. _Like I did,_ she suspected. _After Big brother died._

Finally Mondo spoke again. "If those Tauros hadn't been scared away from me, I would have been trampled to death. I was horrified when they died and it still makes me sad, but I'm _glad_ to be alive. I don't blame Charizard for what happened... or Dad. And I don't blame the boss for doing whatever he has to do to protect Team Rocket. If our enemies or the people on the outside were able to, they'd trample _us._"

.

It was well after dark when they returned, and Giovanni still had not come back. Mondo offered to let Anari sleep in his room for the night (he'd found her asleep in the supply room that morning) but she declined his offer. They parted ways and she made her way to her uncle's empty office. Clicking on the lights, she felt a strange uneasiness staring at the empty room. She'd never been here alone before. She climbed up onto the desk and sat staring at Giovanni's empty chair.

_Everything he does is for Team Rocket. But does that really make it RIGHT?_ she wondered.

"Where are you?" she asked the empty chair. "Please come home."

As if in response to her request, the sound of helicopters could be heard overhead. She dashed out of the room, not bothering to turn off the lights or shut the door. With so few people left at HQ, Anari had no trouble making her way to the roof where Giovanni, Persian and Domino were disembarking from their aircraft. Team Rocket's air squad had also returned.

"Where WERE you, Uncle?" Anari asked. "Why were you gone so long?"

He stared at her in confusion. "That's the strangest thing... I don't remember. I can't even remember why I _left_..."

"Domino?" Anari asked. Domino shook her head.

"I don't remember either."

"You left with the _entire air squad_ and neither one of you can remember _anything?_"

"No one can," Giovanni responded. "I just have this feeling... that I've been utterly defeated."

She watched them wander away, both looking as confused as she felt. It was the first time she'd seen either of them look so disoriented. The helicopter pilot didn't look any better, and neither did the rest of the returning agents. She shook her head and went back inside. All this time she'd been debating with herself over whether or not her uncle was bad. Now she was wondering if she ought not be more concerned with whether or not he was going mad. Only a crazy person, she reasoned, would run off to some unknown place for no apparent reason and come back with no explanation of where he'd been or what he had been doing. She sighed tiredly and decided she was done thinking about it for the day. At that moment she no longer cared if he was good or bad or completely mad. She just wanted to go to bed and hope that the adults in her life would be saner in the morning. Her grandmother's words came to mind:

_Maybe it's better not to know._

* * *

><p>To be continued in Chapter 6: "A Day In the Life"<p>

**REVIEWS ALWAYS APPRECIATED!** Next chapter will feature Jessie, James & Meowth!


	6. A Day In the Life

**Home Is Where the R Is**  
>Chapter Six - A Day in the Life<p>

. . .

The next few months were not favorable to the Team Rocket organization. Several bases were discovered by the authorities and Professor Namba's underwater research facility had been completely destroyed in a disastrous attempt to capture a parent and child Lugia. The only thing Giovanni found more tiresome than Butch and Cassidy's groveling apologies over the incident was Namba's constant pestering for another base to be built. To rid himself of the annoying lot, he decided to permanently put Butch and Cassidy under Namba's command and let the three of them aggravate each other for a while. He had bigger problems.

The cops had really been cracking down and there was now a personnel shortage due to the large number of arrests. Tyson and his squad had been arrested only a few days ago. Fewer employees meant less revenue, and two days ago Giovanni had sanctioned pay cuts across the board which everyone was now grumbling about. Employees who were not actively contributing to the organization had been told they wouldn't be receiving any wages at all until they got their act together.

But the hardest and most personal blow of all had come yesterday when Giovanni had learned that his family mansion had been seized by the government. It was both his birthplace and childhood home, and he'd hoped to one day bring Anari there to live once he felt it was safe to come out of hiding. He'd been looking forward to the day when he could sleep in his own bed and he'd been planning to convert the rooms once belonging to his brother into a suite for Anari. He had no idea how to reclaim his property without bringing further suspicion to himself and revealing his location both to the authorities and possibly his enemies. The loss was upsetting him more than (he thought) a grown man had any right to be. He hadn't slept at all last night and had dark circles under his eyes to show for it. His troubles had continued to mount overnight, and this morning his usually immaculate desk was littered with reports that he had no time to read, requests he didn't have the funds to fulfill and complaints (mostly regarding the pay cuts) he was tired of listening to. He'd nearly torn the head off of a grunt who'd come to report that the computers were malfunctioning for the third time that month.

_I need to fire the damned repairman._

The path to world domination was not as easy as he had assumed back in his youth. Dreams of limitless power still drove him with the same passion it had twenty years ago, but there were days he felt very, very old.

Anari had, for the most part, remained blissfully unaware of his troubles. Her days were spent hanging around her uncle's office, helping Mondo with deliveries or playing with the Pokémon agents left at HQ for safe-keeping. Three days a week her afternoons were spent being tutored by various employees Giovanni had chosen to instruct her in subjects he deemed it necessary for her to learn. His secretary was being paid extra to improve her reading and writing skills and several of the lab scientists tutored her in basic mathematics and the elementary sciences. He was in the process of selecting a competent agent to begin teaching the child how to decipher some of the easier codes Team Rocket used, and Giovanni himself was planning on teaching her the finer points of Pokémon battling once she actually had a Pokémon of her own to train. He had already successfully taught her three different ways to kick open a Pokéball in battle instead of using her hands. Despite both their initial fears, the two had developed a genuine bond. Practically everywhere he went the child accompanied him, so when he told her that she would not be joining him on the rescue mission he was leading today she was naturally upset.

"But I don't understand. Why can't I go WITH you, Uncle?" Anari asked.

"Where I'm going is dangerous," Giovanni told his niece. "You'll stay here at HQ where it's safe."

Less than an hour ago a phone call revealed that yet another one of Team Rocket's bases had been destroyed, and the explosion had attracted the attention of the police. Some of Team Rocket's best agents were now trapped in the secret tunnels under the building and needed rescuing before the police found them first. Giovanni intended to personally lead the operation, but it was no place to bring the seven year-old who was now tugging at his sleeve.

"I don't WANT to stay here!" the child whined. She'd been living at Team Rocket Headquarters for several months now and could finally navigate the many corridors without getting lost, but she wasn't keen on the idea of staying here by herself. She certainly didn't want to sleep alone in their dark quarters with her uncle gone. The last time she'd been forced to do so she's spent the first half the night with her head under the covers and the second half wandering aimlessly around HQ. Mondo had found her asleep in the supply room the next morning, curled up in a packing crate. Today going to Mondo was out of the question, as he was off-base assisting a pair of field agents. "Please don't leave me alone!" she pleaded.

"I exceed to your requests every day, often against my better judgement," Giovanni said firmly. "Now _you_ will exeed to _mine_."

"I don't want to be alone," Anari said, looking at the ground. "Couldn't you bring Meowth back here first?" It was Meowth who had first accompanied her around HQ during her first week living there, and it was Meowth who'd slept in bed with her while Jessie and James were on vacation.

"Who?" Giovanni asked. Anari raised an eyebrow, wondering how her uncle could possibly forget the world's only talking cat.

"Meowth!" she said, curling up her hands and holding them near her face in an attempt to mimic his "Dat's right!" pose. "With Jessie and James!"

"Oh, those three. Fine, I'll have someone locate them. They can watch you until I get back."

Anari visibly relaxed, but part of her was still worried. "Uncle Giovanni?"

"Now what?"

"You... you _will_ be back, right?"

"Of course I will."

"And you'll make sure they don't hurt Domino?"

Giovanni smiled. Domino was the one who'd called for assistance. Anari knew how fond he was of the young woman. Domino's (now deceased) mother had been a third or fourth cousin of his and he'd known her (also deceased) father since boyhood. Before Anari had come along Domino had been the closest thing he'd had to a daughter, although not even Domino herself was aware of their distant kinship.

"Don't worry, I'll get her out. I daresay she'd manage to escape on her own if it weren't for the fact that one of our top scientists has broken his leg." _If it's not one thing it's another..._ he thought to himself, before adding, "We can't allow a man with that much knowledge of our organization fall into the hands of the police."

"Be careful, okay?" Anari pleaded. "I don't want you to die like..." _Like my brother._

Giovanni placed a hand on top of her head. "Nobody's going to die today, Anari."

The little girl embraced him, and Giovanni was again hit by a twinge of sadness over the loss of his family home. He could still remember a much younger Domino running around the gardens picking flowers when she was Anari's age. His heart greatly desired that his niece should have similar experiences instead of spending her days in hiding as he now did. He could still hear Dominique's laughter in his head from the sunny day when his daughter had presented them with makeshift bouquets. How he had doted on her!

_"Those tulips cost money, you know!"_ his mother had complained half-heartedly about the destruction of her flower garden, even as she accepted the childish bouquet from the little golden-haired beauty. Despite her general aversion to children (including her own at times, particularly when her sons were costing her money) Madam Boss had developed a fondness for the child, perhaps because she had also been fond of the girl's mother. To Dominique's utter devastation his young wife hadn't lived more than an hour after birthing their only daughter, and Giovanni vividly remembered the day he had accompanied the grief-stricken man home with his infant child swaddled in his arms. Father and daughter had grown very close, and she'd decided very early in her young life that she would one day follow in his footsteps. Now Dominique too was gone, and Giovanni was left to reflect on the sad reality that tragedy seemed to follow him and everyone he knew. He feared what Anari's future might hold.

_At least she's safe..._ he consoled himself. _For now, at least._

He had not been able to save his friends or relatives and he had failed to protect his family's estate as well; but even if he could not give his niece the life she deserved, he took some comfort in the knowledge that she had been successfully taken out of the hands of her parents' killer. He _had_ done that, at least. Picking up the phone, he prepared to make arrangements for her continued safety, so he could go rescue another orphan close to his heart.

. . .

"What are you doing here?" a woman with short green hair demanded, as Anari stood in front of the Johto base where she'd been dropped off. The guard had let the child through the gate and told her to wait by the door for her escort.

"Waiting," Anari answered simply. One thing that fascinated the child was the fact that none of Team Rocket's bases looked alike. Some were in the mountains, some were underwater, some were even underground. A few were in cities, disguised as other things. She'd especially enjoyed visiting the one disguised as a video arcade. This one was as unique as the rest, but the people working here didn't appear to be very friendly.

"This is no place for children!" the woman scolded, grabbing Anari by the arm. "How on earth did you get IN here?"

"I'm waiting for Wendy! Let go, you're hurting my arm!"

"_I'm_ Wendy," the woman said, releasing her. "And I don't have time to deal with nosey little brats today."

"The guard said I was supposed to meet you here!"

"You?" the woman asked. "Why would... I'm supposed to be meeting someone called Anari here."

"I AM ANARI!"

"Anari the _agent_," Wendy replied, in a superior tone. "Not Anari the _infant!_"

"I'm not an infant!" the girl shouted, resisting the childish urge to kick the woman in the shin.

"Look kid, if you don't get out of my hair right now I'm going to take you over my knee and-"

Wendy's cell phone rang, cutting her off. She answered it and Anari crossed her arms, furious with her uncle for sending this rude, arrogant person to escort her.

_I don't want to go ANYWHERE with HER!_

"Are you serious?" Wendy asked the person on the other end of the line in an aggravated tone, eyeing the child in front of her indignantly. Anari stared right back, looking no more thrilled about the arrangement. "Why didn't anyone _tell_ me?" Wendy yelled, before hanging up on the person she was talking to and shoving the phone in her purse. "Let's go!" she ordered, and Anari followed her reluctantly.

Even after learning the identity of her new charge, Wendy continued to treat Anari with disdain. It was certainly not lost on Anari that she was being looked at as an annoyance. Wendy saw children in general as a bother, and Anari had a feeling the nasty look the woman was giving her was the same she might give a piece of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

_I'd gladly stick some gum on her shoes! _the little girl thought angrily.

Both were relieved when they arrived at the meeting site and could finally part company. Jessie and Meowth were already there waiting, along with a strange blue Pokémon Anari had never seen before. The trio greeted both the child and her escort, but only Anari greeted them back. She quickly joined the group, while Wendy got back her car and drove away muttering, "I still can't believe the boss re-hired those imbeciles..."

"I hate her!" Anari announced, after Wendy had left.

"She wasn't very friendly, was she?" Jessie responded.

"No, she's MEAN!" Anari declared.

"I think I know her from somewhere," Jessie responded. "I just can't remember where. Well, no matter."

"And who are you?" the child asked the blue Pokémon.

"Wooooooobbuffet!" it answered.

"This is Wobbufet," Jessie explained. "He's part of our team now. It's been a while since we last met, hasn't it?"

"Yeah," Anari agreed. "It has."

"You hungry?" asked Meowth. "James is cookin' breakfast."

Wobbuffet seemed pleased at the prospect, and cheerfully exclaimed "Wobbuffet!"

"I wasn't talkin' ta you!" the cat informed the blue Pokémon. "I was talkin' to da kid!"

"Back in your ball!" Jessie ordered, deciding it best to avoid a fight. She was hungry, and not in the mood for anything that would waste valuable time that could and should be used getting them back to where the food was. Whatever the food was. As far as she'd known they were completely out of edibles, but James had declared that (somehow) there would be a "delicious meal" waiting for them when they got back. She hoped it wasn't another attempt to make salad out of tree leaves again. "This way!" she directed Anari.

"Sure!"

. . .

Anari loved the woods. She's spent very little time among the trees; the root of her affection stemmed from the many fairy tales she'd read about poor woodcutters, lost princesses, enchanted animals and other fascinating beings who inhabited the forest. Reality was nothing like a fairy tale, she knew, but the towering trees and the sounds of wild Pokémon seemed to have a magic all their own.

"So what's cookin', Odd Lookin'?" Meowth asked, unable to resist the quip as they entered the campsite.

"Soup," James replied. "And I do not look odd!"

"Dat blue head 'a yours looked in a mirror lately?" Meowth asked. Jessie kicked him. "Hey!"

"Where did we get ingredients for soup?" Jessie inquired.

"I found some mushrooms and wild onions in the forest, along with some herbs. At least, I think they're herbs. They're green, anyway."

"You actually EAT that stuff?" Anari asked, sniffing the bubbling pot. "Why not go to a restaurant?"

"Because we're in the middle of the woods, for one thing," Jessie told her. "James can't fit a local eatery in his pocket."

"No," James said, "But I've got this!" He held up one-third of a baguette, his share of yesterday's (or perhaps the day before's) theft from a bakery.

"What are we supposed to do with a hunk of dry, stale bread?" Jessie asked.

"Make croutons!" James replied triumphantly, breaking the bread into small pieces. This was a slow task, as the bread was hard as a rock.

Anari eyed the watery concoction doubtfully. At home she would be ordering her meal down in the HQ cafateria, where the staff would be falling all over themselves to make sure Team Rocket's heir was made happy. Agents were expected to order from what was listed on the daily menu Cook wrote out each day but Anari, like her uncle, got whatever she wanted. If she ordered pancakes for dinner, she got it. If she wanted steak for breakfast, she got it. It wasn't lost upon her that she was getting rather spoiled, but not until now did it occur to her how privileged she truly was. As she watched James happily add the stale bread to his "soup", Anari wondered if all agents ate this badly when they were out in the field. She recalled how her stomach had growled when she'd accompanied Butch and Cassidy on their assignment in Johto because her furious uncle hadn't given them any money.

James dished out their dinner into three wooden bowls and handed the first one to Anari. Meowth grabbed his next and Jessie took the last.

"Hey, what about me?" he asked, when he realized there were no more bowls left. Jessie shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, at least give me a spoon!"

Jessie surrendered the spoon, and James grumbled as he began eating out of the pot.

"Soup's great, Jimmy!" Meowth told him.

Anari couldn't disagree more. To say that what she was eating was tasteless wouldn't be _quite_ accurate, since it left an aftertaste of what might be described as old shoe leather. When she whispered this to Jessie, the woman pointed out that it was better than the stolen jerky they'd had for dinner the night before, which had been _tougher_ than old shoe leather. Anari sighed.

"Do you guys eat this stuff everyday?" she asked.

"No," James replied. "Some days we don't find any food at all!"

Anari was horrified. Of all the hardships she'd had to endure in her short life, severe hunger was not one of them. Her uncle always kept her well fed, as had her brother before him. Antonio had denied her a meal or two on occasions when he chose to punish her, but Anari could never remember being desperate for food.

"Not use to roughing it, huh?" James asked. Anari shook her head. "I wasn't at first either. As a boy I had the most delicious food! Filet minion, caviar, ice cream sandwiches... one of the few things I missed when I ran away from home was the food!"

"I like ice cream sandwiches," Anari said. "I haven't had one in a long time." _Not since Big Brother died._

"It's been a while for me, too..." he sighed. "Ah, the memories..."

"You guys should buy food in town and keep it for when you're stuck in the woods," Anari suggested.

"That... might be difficult," Jessie said.

"See, buying food requires money," James told her, as if she didn't already know.

"And we don't HAVE any," Meowth finished. "Not since da boss quit payin' us."

"You don't get paychecks?" Anari asked.

"Not anymore," Jessie sighed.

"We owe Team Rocket so much money we have to pay THEM," James said.

"I still owe 'em seven of my nine lives," Meowth said. "I owed 'em all nine, but I paid two off."

Anari raised an eyebrow, trying decide whether or not the Pokémon had told a joke. She didn't laugh, the whole situation was far too depressing. Last time she'd seen Jessie and James they'd just gotten back from an all-expense paid vacation provided by her uncle. What had happened to make them fall out of his favor?

"Well, no matter," James replied. "We need to come up with today's plan. We've got a Pikachu to catch!"

"Being a field agent must be exciting!" Anari said. "I went on a mission with Butch and Cassidy once and we had to jump out of a helicopter." She neglected to mention that she'd been terrified out of her mind at the time.

"A day in da life of Me-owth is no picnic!" Meowth told her.

"Or mine," James agreed.

"Or mine," Jessie finished, before adding, "Until we catch that Pikachu I doubt any of our lives will be worth living."

"You're having trouble catching a Pikachu?" Anari asked.

"It's a _special_ Pikachu," Jessie told her,

"The thing's invincible," James added.

"How are you going to catch it if you can't see it?" Anari inquired, genuinely puzzled. Everyone stared at her for a moment, equally confused, until a light bulb went on over Jessie's head.

"Not invisible," she explained. "INVINCIBLE. It means it can't be defeated."

_"A Pikachu?"_ Anari asked, disbelieving.

"You'll see," Meowth told her. Jessie got to her feet.

"Well, if everyone is done eating, let's go!"

"To the balloon!" James shouted dramatically, and away they went.

. . .

To Anari's surprise, the owner of the "special" Pikachu turned out to be an ordinary-looking ten year-old boy accompanied by an ordinary-looking girl carrying a Togepi. They gave a shout of "Team Rocket!" and a third traveling companion appeared from behind a thicket holding a bag filled with herbs he'd been gathering.

"You guys again?" Brock asked. "We just saw you this morning!"

"Before sunrise!" Misty complained. "You woke up Togepi!"

"They woke up all of us," Brock reminded her. He'd been none-to-pleased to have his dream interrupted- he'd been judging a beauty contest consisting entirely of Nurse Joys- and even less pleased to have to deal with Jessie, James and Meowth first thing in the morning.

"Why don't you just give up and go away?" Ash asked.

"Never!" Jessie vowed. "Not until we catch Pikachu!"

It was at this point that the children noticed Anari, who'd just climbed out of the basket of the balloon. She'd seen many Pikachu in her young lifetime, but she wanted a closer look at the Togepi trilling happily in Misty's arms.

"You kidnapped a little kid?" Ash asked. "I knew you were rotten but I never dreamed the three of you were THIS bad!"

"Of course they are!" Misty told him. "How many times have they harassed _us?_"

"For your information we didn't kidnap anybody!" Jessie replied indignantly.

"Dat's right!" Meowth said. "We're babysitting for da boss!"

"Don't worry, little girl," Ash smiled, holding his hand out to Anari. "I'll take you home." Anari backed away from him, hiding behind James.

"You see?" James asked.

"Only you three would think it's all right to bring a little kid along to go theiving!" Brock scolded, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, what kind of future do you want her to have?" Misty asked. "You're setting a terrible example!"

Anari stifled a laugh as she buried her face in James' uniform. They just had NO idea!

"What business is it of yours?!" Jessie yelled.

"Because you follow us around everywhere we go!" Misty yelled back.

"That's right!" Brock agreed. "You want this poor kid to grow up to be like YOU?"

"I still say they kidnapped her," Ash said. "Look how many times they've tried to kidnap Pikachu!"

"Not to mention all the other Pokémon they've tried to steal," Misty agreed. "Once a thief, always a thief!"

"WE DIDN'T KIDNAP HER!" Jessie and James yelled at the same time.

"Well, kidnappers or not, you aren't getting Pikachu!" Ash told them. "You might as well just give up!"

"We NEVER give up!" Jessie informed him. "Haven't you figured that out by now?"

"You guys are hopeless," Misty sighed. She reached for a Pokéball, but Ash beat her to the punch.

"GET them, Pikachu!" he ordered.

"Ash, wait!" Misty and Brock both cried out, but it was already too late. Pikachu sent out a powerful attack, shocking the trio of villains and the innocent child under their care.

Waves of pain cascaded through Anari's body and before she knew what was happening she was airborn, screaming in terror and clinging to the basket of the balloon she'd been thrown into. Jumping out of a helicopter with Butch and Cassidy had been NOTHING compared to this! Just as she was getting used to soaring upwards the basket began to descend and her terror doubled. Meowth had also been thrown into the basket, but this offered them no promise of safety and Anari knew it. At that moment she'd have given everything she owned in exchange for a parachute. Jessie and James landed in patch of wild flowers; Jessie on her backside, James face-first. The balloon containing Meowth and Anari wound up tangled in a tree.

"Did somebody... get... the license plate number?.." Meowth asked dizzily, nearly falling out of the basket. Anari caught him just in time, nearly tumbling out of the basket herself. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself, when she noticed a wonderous smell in the air.

"What are those flowers?" she asked, calling down to Jessie and James. Distracted by the enchanting scent, she had (almost) forgotten her fright.

"Phlox," Jessie responded, rubbing her sore bottom.

"No, it's called _Dame's Rocket_," James corrected her, spitting the tiny blossoms out. "It's part of the mustard family."

"I like them," Anari said, climbing out of the basket and onto a tree branch. She wondered if the flowers would stay fresh if she gathered some to take home to her uncle. "It smells great!" The sea of tiny purple flowers provided a pleasant distraction for a moment, until a wave of dizziness hit her when she realized just how high up she still was and fell. Meowth attempted to grab her and failed, but by sheer luck her ankle caught between two branches, leaving her swaying dizzily back and forth.

"Dame's Rocket is an invasive weed," James told the now upside-down child. "Often mistaken for a flower called phlox, it robs the soil of nutrients and dominates the surrounding flora."

"Sounds just like Jessie," Meowth quipped from above.

Jessie threw a pebble at the cat and missed, before helping Anari out of the tree. "Weeds are just unappreciated wildflowers, much like myself," she told them. "And YOU," she informed her partner, "are knowledgeable about the most _useless_ information."

"You okay, kid?" Meowth asked Anari, when he'd climbed down from the tree. "Not hurt are ya?"

Anari shook her head. "You do this EVERY DAY?" she asked, pointing to the destroyed balloon.

"Pretty much," James nodded.

"How aren't you _dead_ yet?"

"We're not sure, really," James said, scratching the back of his head.

"Da boss should be givin' us hazard pay," Meowth sighed, smoothing down a patch of ruffled fur. "Or frequent flyer miles."

"The only thing he's going to give us is an earful when he finds out we got his seven year-old niece blasted into the stratospere!" Jessie declared, bring her teammates back to reality.

"He'll fire us all!" James moaned.

"I heard when da boss fires somebody he uses REAL fire!" Meowth added, hugging James' leg.

"I'm all right!" Anari insisted. She suddenly felt something poke her leg.

"Teddi?"

She looked down. It was a Pokémon.

"It's a Teddiursa," Jessie and James said at the same time.

"Not ANOTHER one!" Meowth moaned. The trio's last experience with this particular Pokémon had not been a good one.

"It's so cute!" Anari exclaimed, picking it up. "I used to have a stuffed Teddiursa when I lived with my brother."

"Teddiursa!" the creature said cheerfully.

"It _is_ cute," said James. "But the last Teddiursa we encountered turned out to be nothing but trouble. I have a bad feeling about this."

"I want to take it home," Anari announced.

"Are you CRAZY?" Jessie asked her. "Teddiursa evolve into-"

"URSERING!" James shouted, pointing to an especially large, angry-looking one approaching their direction. It roared at them.

"I t'ink it wants its baby back!" Meowth yelled.

"Let's get out of here!" Jessie told them before sprinting off as fast as her legs would carry her. Meowth followed, and James and Anari brought up the rear. The ursuring chased them through the forest, until the group went over a cliff and landed in a river.

"I... don't... under... stand," James panted, after they'd swam to the shore. "Why is the Ursering still chasing us?"

"Maybe because she's still holdin' DAT!" Meowth exclaimed, pointing to the now-wet Teddiursa Anari was cuddling.

"PUT IT DOWN!" Jessie and James exclaimed at the same time.

"But I want to keep it."

"YOU'VE GOT TO GIVE IT BACK!" they all shouted.

Anari reluctantly set the Pokémon down, and it looked up at her curiously. "Ursa?"

"Now let's get out of here!" Jessie yelled at the sound of the approaching Ursering, and they all ran away.

"I wanted to keep it," the seven year-old whined, when they'd reached a point of relative safety. "And all the rocket-flowers I wanted are gone, too!"

"People in Hell want ice water!" Jessie retorted.

"There's no such place!" Anari shot back.

"Just stop it!" Meowth yelled, in no mood to listen to a philosophical debate. He pointed an accusing paw at Anari. "You could 'a gotten us all killed!"

Anari's lip begain to quiver, crushed that even Meowth was against her. All she'd wanted was to capture a Pokémon. What was wrong with that? Hadn't her uncle told her that capturing Pokémon was what Team Rocket was all about? Jessie told her to quit being a spoiled brat, and Anari began to cry.

"Nice goin', Jess," Meowth muttered, as if he himself hadn't had a hand in upsetting the child.

"Don't make me give you something to cry about!" Jessie yelled at the girl. James quickly got between the two, wanting to diffuse the situation before Jessie whipped out her paper fan and the little girl found herself soaring into the stratosphere yet again.

"We're all tired and upset," he told them both. "Why don't we go get something to eat?"

"Food sounds good to Meowth," Meowth agreed, and the two female members of the group nodded, not looking at each other. They all trudged off in search of a restaurant.

. . .

"How is dressing like THIS gonna get us food?" Anari wanted to know, poking at the ground with her yellow parasol. "These clothes are too hot and I keep tripping over the dress."

"It _is_ a bit long on you," James agreed as he laced her corset. He was wearing an identical dress and carrying a powder blue parasol. A pink parasol whacked him upside the head.

"Hold STILL, would you?" Jessie commanded. She was currently lacing up _his_ corset, but he had a tendency to wiggle around.

"We look silly," Anari complained. "Especially HIM!"

"Hey! I take pride in my ability to disguise myself so well!" James protested. "Not every man has the perfect figure and the acting talent to pass himself off as a lady of quality!"

"Not YOU," Anari responded. "HIM!" She pointed to Meowth, who was wearing a baby jumper with cherries on the front and a frilly bonnet that hid the Pokémon's pointed ears. As a finishing touch, James had shoved a pacifier in the cat's mouth.

"Hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it!" Meowth retorted. "You'd be surprised how far da "cute widdle baby" act will get you."

Anari had no desire to dress as an infant, so she kept her mouth shut. The outfit she was wearing was bad enough.

"So who are we again?" she asked.

"We are the fabulous Midwich sisters!" Jessie explained. "Victoria and Madeline. You can be our cousin and Meowth's our baby."

"OUR baby?" James inquired. "If we're both women- and _sisters_- then he can't be OUR baby!"

"Fine, he's YOUR baby!"

"Just what are you insinuating, girlfriend?" James asked. "A lady of my high caliber would never have a baby out of wedlock!" Again Jessie's parasol violently made contact with his head.

"How is this going to feed us?" Anari asked again.

"We used these disguises to scam the owner of a nearby restaurant into believing we're fabulously wealthy," Jessie explained.

"He was so enamored by our charm and beauty he didn't notice that we "forgot" to pay," James added.

"Or dat we swiped everything dat wasn't nailed down," said Meowth. He'd been hiding under James' dress at the time.

"Um... why don't we just pay him?" Anari asked, not in the mood for anymore unneeded conflict. Jessie frowned at her.

"Two reasons: One, a being successful scam artist requires practice, just like any other skill, and this is a perfect opportunity to showcase our talents; and two-"

"...we don't have any money," James and Meowth finished for her.

"I have money," the child told them, pulling a wallet out of her pocket. "My uncle's credit card. He gave it to me before he left."

The trio of villains all collapsed in a heap.

. . .

"Are you sure that's not too big?" James asked, eying the giant panini sandwich Anari was holding.

"Nope, this is just right."

She carried the sandwich over to a nearby lake, where a single Psyduck was swimming around lazily. Jessie, James and Meowth sat down at one of the tables in front of the restaurant and began eating their own food. They were still in their disguises. Anari had wanted to abandon their "silly get-up" in favor of her own clothing, but her wet pants and shirt were still hanging in a tree along with everyone else's clothes. She'd abandoned the frilly hat, at least.

"I just t'ought of somethin'," Meowth said to his companions as they watched the child try to coax the Psyduck over to her. "She's da boss's kid now..."

Jessie and James both nodded and responded simultaneously, "Right..."

"And she's gonna be runnin' Team Rocket one day..."

"Right..." the couple agreed again.

"So what does that make her to us?"

"Uh... the mini-boss?" James offered. Jessie hit him with her parasol. "Ow!"

"Don't be ridiculous," she told him. "She's a kid!"

"Well, ya better go make up with her soon," Meowth said.

"Why should I?" Jessie asked stubbornly.

"Well, for one thing, she DID pay for that sandwich you're eating," James pointed out. Jessie crossed her arms childishly and looked away. Gratitude had never been one of her strong points.

"And because the boss'll be mad if she tells him how mean ya were to her!" Meowth added. "Besides, it'll be a long night if you guys keep fighting. I say you should go ova' there and yous two should squash it." James nodded in agreement. Jessie sighed.

"Fine."

When Jessie took a seat on the ground next to Anari, she saw that the little girl had eaten the meat and cheese out of her sandwich and was currently in the process of breaking the bread into pieces. She tossed the pieces into the lake one by one, trying to coax the Psyduck closer. It worked for a few minutes, but once she ran out of bread the Pokémon lost interest and decided to investigate the other side of the lake. Anari sighed wistfully.

"I wish I had my own Pokémon."

"Ask the boss. I'm sure he'll get one for you."

"Maybe..."

"Why were you so set on that Teddiursa?" Jessie asked.

"My brother gave me a toy Teddiursa when I was five," Anari said. "I slept with it every night. I lost it when... when I went to live with Uncle Giovanni."

"You mean you left it at the base where you used to live," Jessie said. "Where we met you for the first time." Anari nodded.

"When I saw that Teddiursa I just wanted it _so much_," Anari explained. "I didn't even care that the parent Ursuring was worried about its baby. You're right... I was being a brat. I'm sorry for being stupid."

Jessie stared at the lake, watching the light sparkle on the water's surface. She felt a wave of nostalgia as she remembered her much-younger self faced with a similar problem long, long ago.

"When I was a little girl," she said, as she threw a series of small pebbles into the lake. "I had this dolly. It didn't look like much and I was always knocking it around, but I really loved that thing. Then one night I lost it under the most... _bizarre_ circumstances and for years I would have done anything to get it back."

"Bizarre circumstances?" Anari asked.

"It was stolen by a Jynx."

"That definitely sounds bizarre," the child agreed.

"It gets weirder," Jessie said. "For years I thought the Jynx was Santa Claus."

Anari burst out laughing, and Jessie laughed with her. A short distance away Meowth and James heard the sound of laughter and both let out a sigh of relief.

"Glad dat's over," Meowth said, finishing off his sandwich.

"I'll say," James agreed.

. . .

"I'm cold," Anari whimpered for the third time that evening as she cuddled Meowth against her for warmth. They were camping out for the night.

"You could always call Wendy to take you back to HQ instead of waiting for the boss to send someone to get you," Jessie pointed out. "Then you'd be home in your own bed instead of hogging my blanket."

"I'm never going ANYWHERE with her again!" Anari declared. "She's mean!"

"Meaner than Jessie?" James and Meowth asked at the same time. Jessie, who was laying between the two, whacked them both at the same time, mallet in one hand, paper fan in the other.

"Besides, I don't want to stay at home by myself," Anari added. "Without my uncle there it would be dark and creepy."

James personally thought Giovanni's presence would make a place seem _more_ dark and creepy, but he kept his opinion to himself.

"Jessie, can I sleep with you?" he asked. Jessie had commandeered his blanket after offering hers to the child. Meowth had loaned his to James since he was sleeping with Anari, but the Meowth-sized blanket was woefully inadequate for a full-grown adult.

"No. I'm _mean_, remember?"

"Jessieeee..." he whined.

"Ya didn't t'ink she was too mean yesterday when you'se two disappeared into the woods for some "alone time"!" Meowth quipped.

Jessie's fan again made contact with the cat's head. "Shut up!"

"Please Jess?" James begged. "It's cold and dark and scary!"

Meowth snorted and Anari giggled.

"Are you _serious?_" Jessie asked, trying not to smile.

"And I think I have a concussion!" James whined dramatically, rubbing where Jessie's mallet had made contact with his skull. "I'll probably _die_ out here alone in the cold, but nobody cares..."

"Get in here," Jessie said, opening her blanket for him. "We'll never get any sleep with you carrying on."

"Yay!" He dove under the covers and into the warm arms of his partner, not expecting the kiss that awaited him, unseen and unnoticed by the child and Pokémon laying only a yard or two away. Nor would they notice the two disappear into the forest together later that night, long after they'd fallen asleep.

. . .

Giovanni's rescue mission was a success. By the time an agent came and returned Anari to HQ the next morning Domino was already clamoring for a new assignment and Dr. Zeger was resting comfortably in the medical center recuperating from his broken leg alongside a few other injured agents.

"Another perfectly good lab ruined!" the man moaned, as he polished his monocle.

"At least everyone made it back," Anari offered optimistically. She'd wandered into the infirmary and asked how he was doing. Her uncle, who'd gone for two days without sleep, had immediately gone to bed.

"I despise Kanto," Zegar confessed to the little girl. "Nosy cops, nosy trainers and my work is constantly being lost or destroyed before I complete it. One of these days I'm going to be stationed in some remote region where I can conduct my research in _peace!_"

"Maybe you should build a laboratory that moves," Anari suggested.

"A laboratory that moves?"

"Yes, like on a boat or plane. Then when you get sick of being in one place you can move to another and take all your stuff with you!"

A light lit up in the old man's eyes, and he smiled. "A mobile laboratory... Maybe I'll just do that!"

. . .

A few days later, Anari was surprised to find a large package with her name on it sitting on her uncle's desk.

"It was delivered via Delibird a few minutes ago," Giovanni told her.

"What's in it?" Anari asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me that," he responded. "Open it."

She did so, and squealed with delight when she saw the first thing it contained. It was a toy Teddiursa, identical to the one she'd left behind months ago. The size and texture were the same, and when she examined it more closely she saw that the right ear had a line of stitching where it had been sewn back on, just like her own. Her eyes widened.

_It can't be! _

She held the plushie to her face. It was. It even _smelled_ like her old bedroom. Her uncle dumped the box upside down on his desk and out spilled a number of small toys, books and even a little photo album that contained pictures of her with various Pokémon and several photos of her with her brother.

"What on earth?" Giovanni asked, picking up a cheap plastic necklace in one hand and a book in the other. "What IS all this?"

"My stuff," Anari said softly. "They went back... and got my stuff." Her eyes filled with tears as she picked up an envelope from the pile of childish treasures with Jessie, James and Meowth's faces drawn on it. Inside was a note that simply read simply:

_From your friends._

* * *

><p><strong>Please review if you've got the time! ^_^ And thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far!<strong>

_To be continued in Chapter 7: Anari's Training Daze_


	7. Anari's Training Daze

**Home Is Where the R Is**  
>Chapter Seven - Anari's Training Daze<p>

. . .

It was a perfect morning. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and Anari, awake before her uncle as usual, had already made good use of her youthful energy by bringing them up bagels and fruit from the HQ cafeteria.

"I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills! I love the flowers, I love the daffodils!" she sang loudly, flitting around the room.

"Well, love them _quietly_," her uncle told her, wondering why children had to be so noisy. He was making coffee as he looked at a report he'd put off reading yesterday. Anari sat down to eat her breakfast, wondering why grown-ups had to be so grumpy.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Going over the Rocket Enterprises report."

"I thought you were supposed to do that yesterday?"

"I'm the boss. That means I can do what I want, when I want. Now eat your breakfast." Anari obediently took a bite out of her bagel, preparing to ask another question until Giovanni added, "And no more chatter!"

Things were starting to improve for Team Rocket, and he was pleased to see that figures were up at Rocket Enterprises, the business he used as a cover for Team Rocket's illicit money-making ventures. This was good, since he was due to meet with Viper today to go over the yearly budget for Team Rocket's training school. Viper would no doubt be requesting an increase in funds as he did every year. Each year they did the same old song and dance. Giovanni would review the school's expenses and make his yearly tour of the institution resolved not to be taken in by Viper's predictions of doom and gloom, and every year his resolve failed when Viper calmly stated every possible scenario of what might happen if a training school for spies, assassins, field agents and special operatives were to go underfunded. Giovanni was amazed at the man's ability to spin the yarn in a seemingly emotionless manner and still elicit fear as he told of possibilities ranging from incompetent operatives resulting from training with obsolete equipment to the police locating the training base- and Headquarters soon after- because they lacked sufficient funds to keep the location secure. Needless to say, every year Viper got his requested increase.

_Well, at least profits are on rise..._ Giovanni thought as he poured himself a cup of coffee. He moved over to the dining area and set his steaming mug of coffee and the report he was holding down on his kitchen table. Persian sauntered into the room lazily.

"It's going to be a good day, my friend!" he informed Persian. He bent over to pet Persian and...

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

"What's the matter, Uncle?" Anari asked, alarmed.

"N-nothing..." Giovanni said, in a pained tone of voice as he grabbed the kitchen table for support. Intense pain shot though his lower back, and attempting to stand upright only intensified the pain. His bit his tongue to keep from swearing in front of the child, who had gotten up from her seat to investigate the matter.

"Why are you standing like that?" his niece inquired.

"I... threw my back out..." her embarrassed uncle admitted. "Could you go fetch someone from the medical unit... _discreetly?_"

"Okay," Anari said, dashing off. _How do you throw your back "out"?_ she wondered. _Old people sure have weird problems..._

Dutifully the loyal child made her way to Team Rocket's medical center and reported Giovanni's malady, but she had no idea what the word "discreetly" meant. She'd assumed it meant to hurry, so she ran the whole way there. Unfortunately, upon arriving at her destination she proceeded to (loudly) tell everyone that her uncle was stuck bent over "like an old guy" still in his pajamas. A medical team rushed to his aid immediately, while everyone else had a good laugh at their employer's expense.

"The Boss might actually be human like everyone else," someone said, after Anari had gone.

"Even the high and mighty get old eventually, if they live long enough," another person said.

Everyone in the room laughed. They also passed on the tale to everyone they interacted with that day.

. . .

"Here's Viper, as you ordered, Sir."

"Obviously, he's standing right in front of me!" Giovanni snapped at Domino. He was still in a considerable amount of pain and he wasn't happy with agents coming to his personal quarters to report to him while he was still in his sleepwear. The medical team had helped him into a comfortable chair, so at least no one else would see him hunched over like a wizened old tree.

"How's your back?" the purple-haired man inquired.

"How do you know about that?" his employer asked. "You've only just arrived!"

Viper pointed to Domino.

"Just about every agent on base is talking about it," Domino responded.

Giovanni shot a glare at his niece. "I told you to be _discreet_!

"I ran as fast as I could!" Anari responded. "I ran to the medical center and yelled that you were stuck and couldn't get up, just like you said!"

"You _yelled_?" her uncle asked, putting his now red face in one of his hands. "And just how many people were in the room?"

"The center was full," she chirped.

"Oh, god..."

As the head of Team Rocket, The Boss, the man who gave orders and signed everyone's paychecks, Giovanni was omnipotent- and he liked it. As a mere human being, he was mortal and therefore subject to mortal difficulties just like any other man. Still, he thought it best that the rest of the world not be reminded of this fact. He had an image to uphold. His employees had not been hired for their moral values and control through a heathy amount of fear kept everyone in line. Who was going to fear a middle-aged man who could barely move? This slip of a girl standing before him had made him a laughingstock.

"Domino?"

Yes, Sir?"

"Smack that impudent child upside the head for me!"

Domino shrugged at Anari and then did what she was told.

"Hey!" Anari protested, rubbing the back of her head. "What was that for?"

"The word "discreet" means to be SECRETIVE!" her uncle told her.

"Oh."

"Does this mean you won't be making your yearly inspection of the academy, Sir?" Viper inquired.

"No, I-" Giovanni stopped, before smiling evilly. He had the perfect idea. "No, leave the report here for me to read and my _niece_ will be going in my stead."

"Huh?" all three people asked at once.

Giovanni continued to grin. This was perfect. He would have a year blessedly free of Viper's tales of woe and a day blessedly free of his niece's "helping". This would get the seven year-old out of his hair before he ordered her tied up and dangled from the ceiling where she wouldn't cause anymore trouble.

"You can't be _serious!_" Viper ejaculated.

"But who will help you, Uncle, if I go away?" Anari asked.

"You've helped quite enough!" he snapped.

Viper stared, first at his employer, then at the child he'd been ordered to take charge of. It was the most ludicrous thing he'd ever heard, taking a seven year-old girl to tour a training school for thieves and assassins. Still, he was far too disciplined a soldier to argue with his leader. He held out his hand. "Let's go," he told her, deciding it best to leave immediately before Giovanni produced another child for him to babysit. Hell, if he stuck around he might find himself stuck with the boss's CAT next! _That man is out of his mind!_

"So what was that all about?" Domino asked, when Viper had departed, clutching his new charge securely by the hand.

"It'll do the child good. If she's to lead this operation one day she needs to learn all she can about it. What better place to start than the basics?"

Domino raised an eyebrow and gave him a skeptical look.

"And I don't want her roaming around HQ telling everyone of my... situation," he admitted.

"Yes," Domino responded, grinning. "There might still be one or two people who haven't heard yet!"

Giovanni sighed. So much for his perfect morning.

. . .

"Did Jessie and James train here?" Anari asked, when the private plane had landed and she found herself standing in front of Team Rocket Academy. She had talked the entire way, and Viper had long since abandoned giving detailed explanations in favor of short, curt answers. Anari hadn't seemed to notice the change.

"Yes."

"And Butch and Cassidy?"

"That's right."

"What about Domino?"

"She trained here, too."

"And Mondo?"

"No, but if he wishes to apply to become a field agent or special operative he'll train here as well."

The child was silent for a while, and as they entered the building Viper contemplated what he should call the girl. It would be ridiculous to address a seven year-old in the same manner he did the Boss, or as he had Madam Boss when she was running the organization. But it also felt completely inappropriate to address Team Rocket's heir in a familiar fashion.

A deaf agent passed them as they entered the building and silently signed a short greeting.

"Hello," Anari said, but he didn't answer her. Viper nodded in acknowledgement and signed for him to carry on.

Anari glanced back curiously. _I wonder what happened to him?_

"Sargent Viper?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"Is this place... is this where my friends are?"

"If you're referring to the twelve men your uncle recently recruited than yes, they're here. Most of them, anyway."

"Can I go see them?"

"Very well," he agreed, figuring it was as good a place to start as any. They walked down the hall where another agent was cleaning the floor. He greeting Viper in the same silent fashion as the first they'd met.

"Why don't they talk?" Anari asked as they walked passed him.

"They can't hear," Viper responded. "An instructor's been employed here specifically to teach agents in their situation to communicate with their hands. Here we are."

They walked into what looked like an ordinary classroom, complete with white student desks. It was empty save for the person cleaning the chalkboard. To her surprise, it was her old friend Henry.

"Henry!"

He turned, surprised. "Anari! What on Earth..?"

"You're a TEACHER?" Anari asked, after they'd hugged.

"I'm a bit old for boot camp," he said. "These youngsters can all run circles around me. So they made me an instructor."

"Team Rocket Academy doesn't just train new recruits," Viper explained to Anari. "It's also a place where many of our older operatives are sent to work when they're no longer physically suitable for the field. Our new recruits benefit from their vast experience. It's also where a good number of the disabled are sent; like the men you saw in the hallway."

"What happened to them?" Anari inquired.

"They lost their hearing in an explosion," said Viper. "They're lucky that's all they lost. Some of the ones sent back to us are missing limbs."

Henry shot the purple-haired man a _look_, indicating that he need explain no further. Small children didn't need to hear about such things.

"So what do you teach?" Anari asked Henry.

"Lock-picking," Henry grinned. "Although Viper here thinks the course is outdated."

"With technology on the rise electronic doors have become more common than old-fashioned locks," Viper replied.

"Still, any crook worth his salt should know how to pick a lock," Henry told him.

"I daresay," Viper replied gruffly.

"So what are you doing here, little one?" Henry asked.

"Uncle Giovanni sent me."

"Our leader deemed it necessary to send Miss Anari to tour the school," Viper explained. "She'll be doing the yearly inspection in his place."

"Fine by me," Henry replied. He had a feeling the less he and his new boss saw of each other the happier they'd both be.

"What's an inspection?" the seven year-old asked.

Henry laughed, and explained meaning of the word. Viper just rolled his eyes, again silently questioning his leader's sanity. He blanked out for while, wondering if back injuries could somehow cause brain damage. He'd never thought of such a thing before, but how else could he explain Giovanni's decision? A child in a place like this was sheer madness. He prudently decided to skip touring the section where assassins were trained, and was considering skipping the shooting range as well. At first he'd thought a good rule of thumb would be to not take the girl anywhere he would not bring his own child, but he quickly realized this was impossible. He would never have brought his own child to a place like this in the first place.

"Where is everyone else?" Anari asked the old man. "Dan, Kent, Lou and the rest. I haven't seen any of the others."

"Well, Lou got a permanent job down in the cafeteria."

"He would!" Anari laughed. Lou loved food. She highly doubted this change in profession had been anyone's idea but his.

"The rest are training to became field agents or grunts. All except Kent and Mark, that is. They got special training to become members of the... er... _special forces_." He decided that sounded better than telling the little girl that they'd been employed as assassins.

"What about Dan?"

"He's still here. Got partnered with Tony."

"Tony?"

Henry used his index finger to trace lines on his face.

"Oh, the guy with the scars. I can never remember his name for some reason."

"We had another guy here who had that problem," Viper recalled. "Ages ago it seems. What was his name? Bill? Bob? Something like that. Anyway, we'd best get moving along. There's still plenty to see."

Anari waved goodbye to Henry as they left the room to continue the tour.

.

Anari followed Viper through many halls and corridors, struggling to keep up with his wide strides until he finally noticed the problem and slowed his pace. Over the next few hours he explained the various training programs agents were required to complete and introduced her to various members of the staff. She also got to see the school's resident Pokémon, watch a well-drilled group of men practice their marching outside and examine a new invention that a semi-retired scientist had recently completed and was in the process of being tested for efficiency. She tried to take a quick glance into every room they passed hoping to see her friend Dan, but she didn't see any more of her brother's former employees until she and Viper sat down for lunch. To Anari's delight, their meal was served by her old friend Lou. He was wearing a greasy apron with Team Rocket's standard R logo on the front.

"How have you been?" Anari asked eagerly.

"Best job I've ever had!" Lou told her. "This place _needs_ me. You wouldn't believe the sort of slop they were serving before I came along!"

Viper soon sent the man on his way, wanting to take this time to educate Anari on the importance of keeping Team Rocket Academy properly funded. He figured if he could impress upon her at an early age the value of making sure the school was financially secure, he or his successor might not have to go through the same trouble with her as he currently did trying to convince Giovanni.

"What does "funded" mean?" the child asked, when he began his lecture.

"It means to make sure there's enough money to pay everyone and buy all of the things we need to keep the school operational. Training equipment, instructors, a well-staffed medical center... these things are vital to Team Rocket's continued success, and as I told you earlier our elderly and disabled also depend on this place remaining solvent. The Team Rocket Retirement Fund pays their pensions, but the funding your uncle sends provides for their medical care. In many cases disabled agents can continue to be valuable, functioning members of the team with a minimal amount of retraining."

Before Anari could ask the meaning of the word "solvent", an agent-in-training came up to them and reported to Viper that someone had lost (or stolen) several pieces of equipment from the training yard.

"Again?" Viper responded, not bothering to hide his aggravation. "If this is somebody's idea of a joke, they're going to see how they enjoy a twenty mile hike!" He slammed down his drink and followed the man out the door. Anari ran after them, taking her slice of pizza with her. She struggled to keep up as the drill instructor marched down the corridors and exited the building. By the time Anari caught up, Viper had ordered another search, and informed everyone that there would be no food that evening unless the missing equipment was found. He was tired of this nonsense.

Anari couldn't have cared less. Upon entering the training yard her attention was immediately drawn to the two men currently running through the obstacle course.

"Dan! Tony!"

They didn't hear her. Dan, clearly exhausted, was struggling to keep up with his partner. Tony was well ahead of him, clearing the final hurdle to complete the course. Dan fell into a trap and the instructor blew her whistle.

"Antony, you're clear!" the woman told him. "Danial, back to the start!"

Dan groaned as he climbed out of the pit and dejectedly went back to the beginning of the course. His partner took a seat on the ground to rest, wiping his face with a towel.

"Still having trouble with that one?" Viper inquired.

"Yes, Sir. He's agile and he's well-coordinated, but he still lacks endurance. Once he tires out, he loses his focus."

Viper told the instructor to take a break, and he took her place. He blew his whistle for Dan to begin again. Anari watched, fascinated.

"Sargent Viper?"

It was a pair of trainees, dressed in dirty blue uniforms. He turned to face them.

"Yes, what is it?"

"We found the missing equipment. Someone shoved it in a utility closet, but now we have another problem."

"And just what would that be?" he inquired.

"When we cleared everything out we found that all the cleaning supplies have gone missing."

Viper's eyes narrowed. Problems of this sort had been cropping up all week, and he was getting tired of it. He recognized the work of a practical joker when he saw it, and he was _not_ fond of jokes. "Put the training equipment back where it belongs," he ordered them, "And have Henry put a lock on that door. Then find the damned cleaning supplies!" He looked back to where Anari had been standing slightly behind him, prepared to assure her that such incidents were _not_ commonplace before word got back to the boss that he'd lost control here; but the girl was gone.

_Someone needs to invent child-balls_, he thought. He envisioned people using them to recall their children like they did their Pokémon. Such an invention would surely prove to be quite profitable.

"Did you see what happened to the girl?" he asked.

One of the men pointed, and Viper's eyes followed the direction of the agent's finger. Anari was now on the training course trying to follow Dan. She'd managed to dodge all the pitfalls and was now low-crawling under the barbed wire.

"WHAT THE DEVIL!"

Panicked, the Drill Sargent blew his whistle. Dan stopped at once, but Anari continued to crawl towards her friend. Dan turned to see what the trouble was. His eyes widened.

"Anari, no!"

At the sound of her name the child raised her head- right into the barbed wire. She screamed in pain, trying to duck down again, but her hair was now caught in the wire.

"Hold still, Anari!" Dan told her, as he and Tony rushed to her aid. "We'll get you out!"

Anari raised her right hand to push the wire away from her and immediately realized her error when the barbed wire cut into her hand. Her clothes had become caught as well, and by the time the two men freed her the back of her outfit was completely ruined.

"Miss Anari, the training course is not a playground!" Viper told her severely, but she was crying too loudly to hear him. She had blood running down her scalp, hand and backside and her long hair was a tangled mess. Tony had cut part of it out of the wire with a knife. She looked, as her uncle would later remark, like a begger's brat who'd been dragged out of a street fight.

"We'll take her to the infirmary," Dan said, and Tony nodded.

Viper waved for them to go, now wishing that he had spoken up when the Boss had come up with the insane idea of sending the child here.

_Child-balls,_ he thought again, wishing he possessed the inventive genius to create such a contraption. _An idea that would revolutionize the world!_

. . .

"I want to keep her overnight for observation," the female doctor in the infirmary informed Giovanni over the video phone. "Also, I'll need your permission to give her a tetanus shot."

"Very well, do it."

"SHOT?" he could hear his distressed niece cry out from somewhere off-screen. "I don't want a shot!"

"I see you have your hands full," he remarked to the physician.

"Actually, she's been very cooperative," the doctor told him. "There's several men in here hovering over her like mother hens and they've been doing a pretty good job of keeping her calm."

"It's for your own good, Little Bit," Dan was telling her. "Lou will bring you something nice to eat when it's all over."

"You'll barely feel a thing," Tony added.

Giovanni fought the urge to smile. "Of course _that_ lot would be there to baby her like a spoiled pet... but where the hell is Viper? He was supposed to be _watching_ her!"

"Well, actually..." the doctor began, before pointing to the right of the screen, "He's kind of in the middle of a... disagreement."

"Are you challenging my authority?" Viper was shouting.

"As far as that child is concerned, you're damn right I am!" Henry yelled back. "What in God's name was she doing out in the training yard?"

"This is none of your affair!"

"The hell it isn't! I dangled that child on my knee when she was an infant and I'll be damned if-"

"Please stop fighting!" Anari pleaded.

"Sargent Viper, the Boss wishes to speak with you," the doctor said, putting an end to the confrontation. A few seconds later Viper took the doctor's place in front of the video screen.

"Where were you when I called earlier?" Giovanni demanded to know.

"I was filing a report on the incident, Sir," Viper responded.

"You'd better have a good explanation for this, or I'm going to "file" your ass!" Giovanni said severely, before mentally adding, _As soon as I'm actually capable of getting up off my own..._

"She went out there on her own, Sir, when I wasn't looking."

"Why weren't you _watching_ her?"

"I apologize, Sir."

"You'll do more than that next time I see you! And if my niece gets so much as an _insect bite_ between now and tomorrow believe me you'll pay!"

"It was because of me," Dan said, joining Viper on the screen. "She saw me on the training course and wanted to get to me. I didn't know she was following me. Sargent Viper didn't realize either, until it was too late."

"You're that impudent young pup that lectured me on "waving guns in front of children", if my memory serves me correctly," Giovanni observed. "I also believe you called me a psychopath."

Dan blushed, his face now almost as red as the Team Rocket training uniform he was wearing. "Uh, yes, Sir."

"Well, I'm glad to see you've learned some manners since then, so perhaps Viper isn't a _complete_ waste of the extortionately exuberant salary I pay him. Where's the old man?"

"Here, Sir," Henry said, taking Dan's place in front of the screen.

"I assume, being at least six or seven decades old, that _you_ know how to look after a child without her wandering into barbed wire?"

"I do, Sir. No further harm will come to her."

"Good. I leave her in your hands."

Viper snorted, and Giovanni returned his attention to him.

"You have something to say, Drill Sargent?"

"No, Sir."

"Good!"

Giovanni slammed his hand on the off button, and the screen went blank. He rose from his seat, wincing as the pain in his back flared up from even the smallest amount of movement. He definitely wasn't going into the office tomorrow, or the next day, either. Somehow he was going to have to manage caring for his injured niece in addition to making sure his own aching body didn't fall apart. He turned to Persian.

"Don't ever have children!" he told the Pokémon. "Miles away and they're STILL a pain in the ass!"

* * *

><p>To be continued<p>

**Please review if you've got the time!**


	8. Secrets in the Night

**Home Is Where the R Is**  
>Chapter Eight - Secrets in the Night<p>

.

"How are you feeling, dear?" the doctor asked Anari later that evening.

"All right, I guess," Anari answered, which was a complete lie. Her scalp, hand and backside were in agony, despite the ointment and painkiller she'd been given. She wasn't about to admit it, though, for fear that the woman might feel inclined to give her another shot. She hated shots.

"You're a very brave little girl," the woman told her, before walking away to attend to another patient.

"Yes, she is," Dan agreed, patting Anari's left hand. The right had been wrapped in bandages.

"Not to mention _foolish_," Henry chided gently. "I don't want you _ever_ going near barbed wire again."

"I won't."

"_EVER!_" the old man emphasized.

"Okay, okay."

"Want another cookie?" Lou asked. Anari took two, put one in her mouth and grabbed a third. Lou always made good cookies.

"You should have tasted the food they were serving before Lou got his job downstairs," Dan said. "The stew was bad enough to turn a Muk's stomach and don't get me started on their so-called meatloaf!"

"It was so bad half the people here were sneaking off base to eat at the little ramen shop nearby," Tony added. "Myself included. Lou is probably killing their business."

Anari, despite her pain, was enjoying herself immensely. It had been a long time since she'd been able to eat Lou's food and socialize with these particular people she loved.

"Tell me a story!" Anari pleaded to Henry, who was sitting on a chair next to the bed she currently occupied in the infirmary. Lou was sitting beside him, while Dan and Tony occupied the two chairs on the opposite side.

"All right," Henry chuckled, motioning for her to lay down. She did so. _"Once there was a world that didn't have any Pokémon in it," _he began.

"Our world!" Anari said. She'd heard the tale from him many times before. Although she didn't know it, he'd made up the story along with many others specifically to please her.

_"Yes, our world. There was only humans back then and they came in all different sizes. Some were as large as giants, while others were so small they only came up to your knees. There were middle-sized people as well, but apart from their varying heights they all basically looked the same."_

Viper, who'd been silently observing them for some time, leaned against the wall. He chuckled softly at how the old man gestured with his hands as he told his story.

_"The humans had quite a lot of trouble getting along,"_ Henry continued. _"The giants complained that they were always tripping over the shorter people, and the midgets complained that they were constantly being stepped on. The middle-sized people complained the most, because they were both tripping over the midgets AND constantly being stepped on by the giants who towered above them. So a petition was drawn up and a delegation was sent to speak with the Creator Of The World about the problem. The Creator Of The World used his power to make humans all relatively the same size, but was saddened by the loss of diversity he had lovingly installed in the race. So, instead, he made the humans several different colors and shapes. For a while everything was peaceful, until the humans began to quarrel with each other again, this time over their physical appearance. Fat, skinny and middle-sized people all began to mock and insult each other and each race claimed to be superior to all the others. When a delegation was again sent to the Creator Of The World, this time to officially degree which race of humankind was supreme, he became enraged that his gift of diversity was once again the cause of discontent by the unappreciative humans. He sent the delegation away and left humanity to its own devices, deciding to start again from the very beginning."_

"So what did he do?" Dan asked, not realizing that he too had become absorbed in the old man's story.

"He invented Pokémon," Anari explained.

"That's right," Henry nodded, pleased to find his tale was capturing the adults' attention as well.

_"The Creator Of The World began anew, creating Pokémon of all different kinds. He gave to them also the gift of diversity, making them all different colors and shapes, and unlike the unappreciative humans the Pokémon reveled in it. So, to reward them for their gratitude he bestowed upon them many powers. Some were gifted with great strength, others psychic ability and still others the powers of the elements. In a select few he instilled the greatest powers of all, and they became-"_

"Legendary!" Anari finished for him. Henry smiled.

_"Yes, Legendary. The mightiest Pokémon of all. But in time the Creator's attention again turned to his first creation, the foolish humans, and he tried to determine what was to be done about them. Leaving them to themselves had accomplished nothing, they'd become even more stupid in his absence. They'd long since abandoned sending delegations and decided to make war on each other instead. He was seriously considering just turning every one of them into stone and be done with them, when an idea came to him..."_

"To make people and Pokémon teach each other!" Anari interrupted. Henry nodded.

_"He felt that Pokémon could help to teach humans the value of cooperation and encourage them to appreciate everyone's unique differences. In turn, they could teach Pokémon how to grow in strength and power. Through their bond both Pokémon and trainer would each learn the most valuable lesson of all: The value of love."_

"A strange parable for a man of your background," Viper commented. Henry shrugged.

"I wanted to be a storyteller when I was a boy," he replied. "I was very disappointed to learn it wasn't something one could make a living with."

"You really thought people would PAY you for telling stories?" Anari laughed.

"Indeed I did. My father got so tired of hearing my nonsense he decided I needed a real job, so he apprenticed me to a locksmith."

"That explains a lot," Viper remarked dryly.

"Did you like it?" Anari asked.

"Working for the locksmith? No, I hated it. But I was good at it; _too_ good, as the locksmith would eventually learn. One night I decided I'd had enough of spending my days training at such a boring profession so I raided the cash box and took off. Tried my hand at quite a lot of different things over the years until your father hired me as a mercenary. I've worked for your family ever since."

"Do you think your father would be disappointed in you?" Anari asked. "I mean, because you work for thieves?"

"Most likely," Henry said. "I never returned to find out. But thievery goes back to the beginning of time, or so the old stories say. They're filled with heroes, kings, peasants and children willing to do whatever they had to do to get what they wanted. Some made deals with devils or even challenged the gods!"

"Do you think any of the stories are true?" Anari asked.

"I think the ancients had wild imaginations, personally," Tony commented. Viper agreed with him. Neither of them believed in gods or devils.

"Who can say?" Henry shrugged. "The days of yore are gone, and there's no one left to remember them."

"Well, on that note, I'm off," said Lou. "I'm going to grab some leftovers from the cafeteria before I go to bed." He gave Anari a pat on her sore head (which she could have happily done without) and left. Viper also bid the child good night before vacating the room, intent on making sure Lou _only_ took what was left over from the late day meal. Food in the supply room seemed to be disappearing at a far greater rate since Lou's employment.

"Lou sure loves to eat, doesn't he?" Anari asked after they'd gone.

"He's caught in the pleasure trap," Henry told her.

"Pleasure trap? What's that?"

"You like cookies because they taste good, right?"

Anari nodded. "Right." She shoved her final remaining cookie in her mouth.

"Even though they aren't particularly good for you, you eat them because you like how they taste. The "pleasure trap" is what causes a person to _keep_ eating them long after they are full, until they get a stomach ache. Unfortunately for Lou, it also makes you fat if you keep at it long enough."

"Why is it called a "trap"?" Anari wanted to know.

"Because when something feels or tastes good, that pleasant feeling is like a trap, causing us to keep doing it even when we know in our minds that we shouldn't."

"Sounds like our former employer," Tony remarked dryly. "Although his addiction of choice was not food."

Before Anari could inquire what he meant by that, the doctor came in and told them it was time for them to return to their quarters so her patient could sleep.

"Giovanni wants her under close supervision until she goes home tomorrow," Henry told the woman. "And I agree with him. We don't want anymore mishaps."

"Very well, _one_ of you can remain with her overnight. The rest need to leave."

"It's my responsibility," Henry told the two younger men. "Go to bed."

"You've got two lectures tomorrow," Dan said. "I'm the youngest. Go ahead and get some sleep."

"YOU have to redo that obstacle course tomorrow," Tony reminded his partner. "Viper's going to run you ragged, so I suggest you get as much rest as you can."

Dan sighed heavily, but didn't argue. He suppressed the urge to call Viper a slave driver. He's been caught doing so once before and Viper had made certain he would _never_ repeat that error. He silently swore to himself that once he completed his training he'd make sure to get an assignment that did _not_ include pitfalls, barbed wire and angry drill sergeants with no sense of humor, even if he had to get on his knees and beg Giovanni for it. A five mile run with an energetic Scyther swiping at him from behind to "motivate" him seemed an unnecessarily harsh punishment for having a smart mouth.

In the end it was agreed that Antony would remain behind. Henry and Danial both affectionately wished the child a good night and vacated the room and the doctor followed suite after giving Tony the number to her cell phone to call if he had any problems.

"She wanted to go to bed, too," Anari observed.

"Indeed. I think you should try to sleep, too."

"Tony... what did you mean when you mentioned Big Brother earlier?" the child asked. "You said he was addicted to something."

"He certainly was," Tony replied. "He was addicted to dominance."

This was entirely true. A need for power- for absolute _control_- had driven Antonio's actions from moment he'd returned from the fatal trip that had left his mother and father at the mercy of the raging sea. His appetites for exercising that control ranged from the sadistic to the perverted. Tony's mind recalled an incident years ago when Anari, not quite four years old, had wandered into a room where her brother had a terrified woman gagged and tied to a bed. The child had been told that the woman was being "punished" because she had been "bad". Tony had been summoned to remove the little girl and entertain her, and had been warned that _he_ would be severely punished if he spoke of the incident or if Anari were allowed to wander into the room again. He'd even threatened to strike the child. Tony was certain that Anari had long forgotten that day but he would never forget the sound of that childish voice in his ear as he carried her down the hall, asking, _"Will Big Brother do that to ME if I'm bad?"_

"What is "dominance"?" the present, older version of Anari asked.

"It's where a stronger person controls a weaker one," he explained. "But don't think about it now. Try to get some sleep."

"All right. Good night, Tony."

"Good night, little one."

Anari rolled over and closed her eyes but sleep was a long time in coming. Her sore body was part of the problem, but it wasn't the main thing keeping her from dozing off. Her mind kept dragging her to places she didn't want to be. Memories of her brother- who she still wasn't sure if she loved or hated more- were first, followed by painful speculation as to what her life might have been like if she hadn't lost her parents because of him. Those bitter thoughts caused another old, suppressed fear to resurface. What if her brother and her uncle were _exactly the same? _And if they were...

What if she couldn't save him, either?

.

_In was dark... and cold. Anari hated the dark. She was wandering inside a huge maze with walls that were covered with barbed wire. The place had an unmistakable aura of danger emanating from it and Anari felt like a very small animal lost in a vast jungle. She wanted to hide. She tried to slowly navigate the maze, hoping with each turn that she was almost out, but each time proved to be a disappointment. She couldn't tell if she was making any progress at all, or just getting herself more lost. __She soon became aware that someone was following her, and she didn't like it._

_"Who are you?" she called out. The shadowy form looked familiar, but it was too dark see his face._

_"Uncle?" she guessed, praying she was right. No response. "Big Brother?" she tried again. Even a familiar ghost was better than a frightening stranger. The shape's clothes were dirty and torn. Neither her uncle nor her brother would ever have permitted themselves to appear in public in such an unseemly fashion._

_Her unknown stalker lifted the large carving knife he was holding and the child screamed. Finally she ran, ripping both her clothes and her flesh as she brushed against the walls. The shape did not follow her. Random knives suddenly came flying in her direction, either thrown by some unseen hand or somehow operating under their own power. She managed to dodge them all except the last, which missed her face by a fraction of an inch but sliced through her hair. Clumps of it fell to the ground and she bumped into a wire-covered wall, screaming in pain. Torn and bloody, she fell to her knees and crawled away from the wall._

_"Get me out of here!" she screamed. "Please get me out..."_

_"Need some help?" a familiar voice asked. It was her brother. Anari held out her bloody hand and he took it, helping her to her feet. _

_"How do I get out?" the sobbing child asked her deceased sibling._

_"There is no way out," Antonio Gambini told her. "Not for people like us."_

.

"Anari! Anari!"

Anari opened her eyes. She was frightened, then relieved, to find Tony's scarred face looming over her in the dark. The light of the moon coming in through the window gave him an almost unearthly appearance. She sat up and looked at her hands. One was bandaged, but neither of them were bloody. She rubbed them together just to make sure. She then reached up and felt where the flying knife had sliced though her hair in her dream and screamed when she found that some of it was missing.

"Calm down, Anari! You're all right!"

"M- my h-h-hair," she sobbed, terrified and confused. "Wh- what h-happened to my- my hair?"

"I cut it in the training yard, remember?" Tony explained. "It was stuck in the barbed wire."

"Oh. That's right. The... the training yard."

"Bad dream?" he inquired when she latched onto him. She nodded against him. It took her a few minutes to calm down and re-adjust to the waking world. There was no blood, no knife-wielding stalker and her brother was most definitely not alive and wandering through some creepy labyrinth. She hoped his ghost wasn't, either.

"Want to talk about it?" Tony asked.

"I dreamed about my brother," she told him.

"That would scare anybody," Tony muttered. He still dreamed of his former employer quite frequently. _It scares the shit out of me every time... _

"I knew he was dead, but it was like he wasn't. He said... that there was no way out. Not for either of us." Tony stroked her face soothingly. His scarred hands felt strange against her smooth flesh.

"But that's not true, is it?" he said gently. "He's gone. You're still here."

"Do you think my uncle will wind up like my brother?" Anari asked. "He does bad things. Big brother did bad things too, and now he's-"

"Are you afraid that he'll hurt you?" Tony cut her off, concerned. Neither of them could handle a repeat of their former lives and he decided then and there that if Giovanni was mistreating his niece then someone would have to step in. He would talk to the others, smuggle her out of the region if need be._ I'll never stand by and let her go through that again!_ He separated the child from himself and looked her in the eyes. "Has that man done anything bad to you?" Anari shook her head and Tony visibly relaxed, relieved that he wasn't going to have to wake his comrades in the middle of the night and plan a last-minute rescue operation.

"No, my uncle is kind to me," Anari said. "I'm afraid somebody will hurt _him_, because... because of the bad things he does." _And I'm afraid he's going to deserve it._

"That may happen," Tony agreed. _It fact it probably will happen..._ He thought to himself. _To him and to all of us... _"A man can't outrun fate."

"That's what my uncle told me," the child said softly. "You can't escape fate."

Tony thought back on the day Gambini had died; the day his and this child's lives had changed. He'd been made to hold a man at gunpoint while his employer attempted to assault a woman. _Not for the first time..._ he mused. How many terrible acts had he helped that demented man commit? And what terrible fate awaited him in the end because of it? Antonio Gambini's fate had been horrific.

"Uncle Giovanni got hurt today," Anari said softly, disrupting Tony's gloomy thoughts. "He hurt his back and couldn't move. If somebody tried to kill him he wouldn't be able to run away and I'm not there to help him. I couldn't help Big Brother, either."

"A lot of people suspected your brother would come to a bad end," Tony said. "Especially when he decided to go after your uncle. No matter how strong you think you are, you're a fool if you aren't prepared for the possibility that there's someone out there stronger. A wise man will plan accordingly. I don't know what's going to happen to Giovanni, but I know he's smarter than his nephew. A man running a criminal organization doesn't live long by being a fool."

"You think Big Brother was stupid?"

"No," Tony answered. "He was cunning in many ways, but short-sighted in others. A smart person can still do things that are very, very stupid. Henry tried to warn him against provoking Giovanni but he refused to listen."

"I wish somebody had stopped him from killing Momma and Daddy," Anari said. "Then everything would be different. I still don't understand why he did it. Were they bad parents to him? Would they have been bad parents to _me?_ Or was he just crazy? He didn't seem crazy to me."

"He did to me," Tony responded, staring at his scarred hands in the dark. "Every day of my miserable life. Never sell your soul, Anari. Once you give it away, you don't get it back."

"Never," she vowed.

"Gambini sold his long ago, and he took mine along with it. I always feared he'd drag you down into the darkness with him one day, like he did me."

"Why was he always hurting you?" Anari asked.

"Because he wanted to punish me for what happened the day your parents were killed... and to keep me from talking. Plus he _really_ hated my name."

"Why?"

"Because it was so similar to his. I wasn't _allowed_ to use my name, and no one else was permitted to use it either. Half the people working for him never learned it and most of the others never remembered. He even changed my name on my service file to "Anthony" instead of "Antony".

"It seems like such a silly thing to be annoyed about," Anari remarked. "He got mad at a lot of silly things. He used to yell at me for standing on his right side instead of his left and for using my left hand to eat instead of the right... and I remember him getting mad, _really_ mad, at Henry once for calling him by his first name."

"No one was permitted to use his name without his chosen surname "Gambini" attached to it," Tony explained. "After he took his father's place he was adamant about being shown nothing less than absolute respect. Why do you think you were taught to say "Big Brother" instead of calling him by his proper name?"

"I never thought about it. What was _wrong_ with him?"

"Your brother had a mental problem, Anari. No one wanted you to know how deep-seeded his issues were. He liked to dominate other people to make himself feel powerful. He was also extremely paranoid that the people around him were trying to take his power away from him. This is part of the reason everyone kept you unaware. We all feared if you knew too much he would eventually come to see you as a threat as you grew older." Tony removed the jacket of his training uniform to expose first his black undershirt, then his scarred arms in the moonlight. "It was better to have you treated as a sort of pet. I didn't want him to begin treating you as he did me... or your parents."

"How did you GET all these?" the child asked, fingering the scars on his arms. "What did he _do_ to you?" Tony shivered, fighting the memories. He silently vowed to make sure no one ever learned the extent of the humiliation he'd endured over the years. There'd even been one time he had woken up tied to the madman's bed, realizing too late that his food had been drugged...

"It doesn't matter now," he said, rubbing the gooseflesh that had popped up on his arms. "I kept you safe. That was all that mattered after I failed your parents."

"You mean... because you couldn't stop him?"

"My guilt is far worse then my failure, Anari. Much worse."

"Why?" the little girl asked. "What did you do?"

Tony took a deep breath. For years he'd been trying to flee from the memories of what had happened that day, as if he could run away from them the way old Henry had run away from the locksmith in his youth. Life didn't work that way. He was certainly old enough to know this by now, but it still seemed like he spent every day of his existence futilely fighting that fact. Still, if anyone had ever deserved to know the truth- the _whole_ truth, in its entirety- it was the child who had lost everything because of it. Giovanni was not holding him at gunpoint this time and the room wasn't filled with over a dozen people staring at him, hanging on his every word. It was just them- just him, the child and the truth.

"Your brother wasn't the one holding your parents at gunpoint when they jumped out of the plane," he told her. He lowered his eyes to avoid her gaze as he confessed, "I was."

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence as his statement sank in. Anari stared at him in horror, both pained and enraged at the _sheer betrayal_. This man was supposed to be her friend! She had practically _begged_ her uncle to save his life!

"How could you do that?" she yelled. "You killed them! It's all your fault!" She began to cry and it was all Tony could do not to start crying himself. "Why did you do it?" the little girl sobbed. "Why did you kill my family?"

"He threatened us," Tony whispered, praying the child didn't ask him to elaborate. Antonio had threatened to harm his infant sister and blame it on them. "Me and my partner. He threatened us both."

"So you did what he said," Anari responded, in a tone of voice that clearly expressed her opinion of his actions. She thought him a coward.

"We followed his orders, yes... but when Antonio learned that we had betrayed him he shot my partner and dumped his body out the plane as well.

"How did you betray him?" Anari asked, and for the first time that evening, Tony smiled faintly.

"After gloating to his father that he'd be in charge of things from now on he took the baby- took _you_- with him into the cockpit to give new orders to the two men he'd bribed to fly the plane to the middle of nowhere and not ask any questions. He left us to do his dirty work."

"And you did. You forced my parents to..." She couldn't bring herself to say it again. Tony nodded.

"Yes, we forced them out of the plane... after we gave them parachutes."

Another brief silence as Anari considered this. If they'd had parachutes when they vacated the plane...

"Then they could be alive!"

"I doubt that."

"But why?" Anari asked. All traces of hurt and anger toward the man sitting at the foot of her bed had vanished, like a popped bubble. "If you gave them parachutes they might be okay!"

"Your brother opened fired on them, little one, as they floated down toward the sea. Most likely they were killed before they ever hit the water, or were wounded too severely to swim to shore."

"But maybe they DID make it! Maybe-"

"Then why didn't they come back?" Tony cut her off. "The plane was over the ocean; they _must_ have perished. We gambled and lost, and my partner paid the price for it." Tony held up his scarred arms. "And that's why your brother did THIS to me day after miserable day for the next five years. Every time something made him angry I was the target of his wrath. I learned to obey him without question after that first day, back when..." _When I thought I was going to die._ He shook his head. "I failed... and you'll never know how sorry I am."

"You_ tried,_" the little girl said to him._ "_At least you _tried_ to save them. If you hadn't... you would have been _just like him_."

"I wish I had shot him," Tony admitted. "But he was holding you in his arms and your parents... your parents would never have understood."

"My whole family is cursed," the little girl whispered as she stared at her bandaged hand. "We're all _cursed!_" Tony looked away, wishing he had words of comfort to offer her. He didn't. He wasn't even certain he could _disagree_ with her. "I'm going to be like him one day, aren't I?" she asked. "Like both of them... I'll do terrible things and then I'll die, just like Big Brother did!"

"No!" he told her firmly, looking her square in the face. "Anari, you have a choice!"

"What if I _don't?_"

Tony didn't have an answer to that. He knew exactly what it was like to live in a world without choices, without any hope of freedom. Was that the life this child was destined for? After five years of hell hope had come to him unexpectedly in the form of the girl sitting before him. What if there was no savior waiting to save her from whatever doom awaited her?

The two sat silently together in the dark for what seemed an eternity to both of them, until finally Anari embraced her older companion and began to weep. Neither of them knew what the future would hold, but one thing was certain: She would never forget Tony's name again.

.

_To be continued..._


	9. Disciplinary Action

**Home Is Where the R Is**  
>Chapter Nine - Disciplinary Action<p>

* * *

><p>"I don't LIKE laundry!" Anari declared with all the passion her young soul could muster. She was standing on a step-stool putting a load of dirty uniforms into the washing machine. The task would have been finished far more quickly if she'd used both hands (as Mondo had suggested) instead of using one hand to put the soiled garments in piece by piece, but her other hand was busily engaged holding her nose. "Uncle Giovanni is <em>mean!<em>"

"I can't believe we pissed him off THAT bad!" Mondo said, as he mopped the floor.

Yesterday had been Mondo's day off, so he and Anari had gone to attend a festival in a nearby city. They'd had a blast. She and Mondo had both pigged out on the food and sweets the various vendors were selling and Anari had even won a Magikarp poster that was now hanging in her room. When they got back Giovanni had been furious with them both for leaving HQ without telling anyone where they were going. Anari had also neglected to mention to Mondo that she had lessons scheduled with the math and science tutors that day, figuring it wouldn't hurt to skip out on them just _once_. Wrong. Anari had been spanked for the first time since she'd come to live with her uncle and Mondo had been told that if anything of this sort ever happened again he wouldn't see another day off for the rest of the decade.

"I can't believe we have to do chores all morning!" Anari complained, feeling that her sore bottom ought to have been more than enough punishment.

"Hey, at least you get to stop working at lunch time!" Mondo told her. "I've got my regular work shift after this!"

"I wish I could go with you. I've got to the spend the rest of the day where Uncle Giovanni can _keep an eye on me_." Normally she loved spending time with Giovanni, but like all children Anari knew that spending time with the adults in one's life was a lot less pleasant when said adults were mad at you. She could think of any number of things she'd rather do that afternoon than deal with her pissed-off uncle.

"Cheer up, you two!" a grunt sitting nearby told them. He usually had laundry duty on this particular day. Today he was reading a thick, hardbound book called "_The White Wailord_". Another agent sat across from him, playing a hand-held video game.

"Why should we?" asked Mondo. "We have to do _your_ jobs!"

"Gives me a chance to catch up on my reading!" the grunt replied cheerfully.

"And since you've cleaned all the toilets and mopped the floors, I've got some time to get my levels up!" the other agent told them. Anari and Mondo glared at the pair resentfully.

"At least the cafeteria smelled better," Mondo sighed. Their first task of the day had been to help Cook with breakfast that morning. The children were required to make sure every agent at Headquarters had been served before being allowed to have any food themselves. They'd also had to do the dishes. The usual kitchen attendants had been given the morning off and were quite pleased to be waited on by the child who they mockingly referred to among themselves as "The boss's little darling".

"This sucks," Anari mumbled, delivering a swift kick at the washing machine that left a sizable dent in the front. Mondo agreed with her whole-heartedly.

.

That afternoon, as Anari sat on the floor of her uncle's office stroking Persian, she learned that she and Mondo were not the only ones who were on the receiving end of Giovanni's temper. She had become used to listening to him yell at his subordinates- she'd often listened to him chew out grunts, field agents and even the occasional member of the Elite- but today was a rather remarkable occasion.

"You really bungled this operation!" Giovanni yelled, slamming his fist on his desk. Domino stood on the other side of the desk, looking uncharacteristically shamefaced. "Letting every member of your squad get arrested is the kind of careless foolishness I'd expect from that idiot Tyson, but not YOU!"

Anari liked Tyson personally, but she had learned not to argue with her uncle when he was on a tirade.

"I wasn't there when the police arrived," Domino offered lamely.

"You _all_ should have been gone _long_ beforehand!" her employer yelled. "Retrieving five members of your team from a group of hapless children could not have been that difficult! A successful commander doesn't sit in the shadows while everyone else takes the fall!"

"But Uncle Giovanni, isn't that what YOU do?" Anari asked, aware of the irony of her uncle's statement. He spun around in his chair to face her.

"Don't be insolent, child!"

Anari had no idea what "insolent" meant, but she guessed it meant something along the lines of _"Shut up, or you'll be joining Domino on the other side of this desk getting an earful!"_ She had already had one yesterday and wasn't keen on getting another today. She shut up. Giovanni turned back to Domino.

"I expect better than this from you!"

"Sir, all the trainers banded together and used their Pokémon to force my men into a corner. I didn't have the time or resources to rescue them before the police arrived."

"And what about the Pokémon you were supposed to steal?" her employer asked. "Did you bring back ANYTHING?"

"No sir."

"I'm giving you until the end of tomorrow to correct this error. If you don't have any Pokémon for me by then I'll strip you of your rank and put you on sanitation duty! If THAT doesn't teach you how to clean up your messes NOTHING will!"

Anari stifled a giggle, burying her face in Persian's fur. She suspected the threat was an empty one, although after the way she and Mondo had spent their morning she couldn't be _completely_ sure. She was beginning to understand her uncle's moods, and had learned to tell the difference between angry annoyance and genuine rage. Besides, Domino was one of the few agents that she knew with absolute certainty that her uncle genuinely liked.

"I'm sure security will be twice as high after the incident today," Domino said. "I'll have to go uncover."

"Then do it."

"It's a children's convention, sir. I would be less conspicuous if I HAD a child." Her gaze drifted over to Anari, as did Giovanni's.

He considered the unspoken request carefully as the girl gazed back at him innocently. She would certainly blend in, and she HAD been out in the field before. Still, after this latest bungle on Domino's part he wasn't keen on leaving his niece alone in her care during a dangerous heist after the woman had already abandoned five other members of her team. Domino's father had also been prone to bouts of selfishness, which had eventually led to his demise. He could only hope that he'd trained Domino well enough that she would not repeat the mistakes of her sire. He was loathe to let history repeat itself. _Maybe if I sent someone with them... or a Pokémon to protect the child.  
><em>

"Anari?" he asked, wanting his niece's opinion on the matter. Anari was never adverse to a little excitement.

"I'll go," she offered. It would get her out of lessons again tomorrow, this time with her instructor in cryptography. Last week had been her very first decryption assignment and she couldn't understand a word of it. Her uncle insisted that if she began learning the various codes Team Rocket used at a young age they would be second nature to her by the time she grew up; but Anari was seriously considering instituting a new rule when it was her turn to lead the organization: any message handed to her had better be in plain English or the messenger could go away and find some other poor soul's doorstep to darken. Her untouched homework was still hiding under her bed where she'd shoved it. Giovanni turned back to Domino.

"Fine, take her," he agreed, waving his hand in a dismissive motion. "Take Mondo as well, he's young enough to blend in."

Domino blinked. "Mondo? Whatever for?"

"He can help you keep an eye on her," Giovanni replied. "She needs watching. The entire base spent over three _hours_ yesterday looking for her!" He shot his niece a glare, which Anari quickly decided was best not to respond to. He hadn't bought her excuses yesterday and she didn't want to risk ticking him off again. She got up and joined Domino, hoping she could get away with leaving the room at the same time the blonde did.

"I'm exceedingly disappointed in you both," Giovanni told them. "The two of you are the future of this organization and I'm counting on you both to prove yourselves more competent than the behavior you've displayed of late. Tomorrow you'd better come back with RESULTS!" Domino turned to leave, and Anari followed her. "Hold it!" Giovanni commanded his niece, causing the child to stop in her tracks. "Don't you have something to say to me first?" His niece blinked, unsure of what he was talking about.

"I... don't... know?"

"You're leaving Headquarters tomorrow."

"Yes," she agreed, confused.

"You need to inform me of this," Giovanni told her.

"But you already know!"

"You need _practice_," he told his niece severely. "As yesterday proved. Now let's try this again: You'll be leaving Headquarters tomorrow."

"I'll be leaving Headquarters tomorrow," she said.

"With Domino and Mondo," her uncle said.

"With Domino and Mondo," the child echoed.

"I expect not to have to correct you for this error again. Now go."

. . .

"Which did he give you, laundry or kitchen duty?" Domino inquired. These were the usual punishments he assigned Team Rocket's younger members. They had longer-lasting effect on youth, he claimed, than the pay cuts older members were made to endure.

"Both!" Anari told her. "AND we had to clean the bathrooms!"

"We?"

"He punished Mondo, too."

"He must have really been mad," Domino remarked. "He never made _me_ clean the bathrooms."

"Have you ever been punished?" Anari inquired.

"Once or twice, in my early days," Domino replied.

"What's the worst punishment you ever got?" the child inquired.

"Kitchen duty, every meal, for two solid weeks. I hated it. It was supposed to be one week but I called Cook a few choice words that got another week added on. By the end I never wanted to see another dish again."

"What did you do to get stuck in the kitchen in the first place?"

"I left his bratty son up a tree," Domino said. "The boss told me to watch him, but Silver wouldn't obey me and refused to come down when it started to rain so I left him there."

_I probably would have, too._ Anari thought.

Domino had omitted the fact that the boy had only been three or four years old at the time and that she herself had been the one who'd put him up in the tree to begin with. Babysitting had never been her thing. Silver had been whipped for his disobedience and Giovanni had been sorely tempted to give his babysitter the same punishment despite her advanced age of thirteen years. She had been spared the humiliation of having her backside get better acquainted with Giovanni's belt, but after two weeks of being put at Cook's disposal Domino might have prefered it. Cook wielded kitchen utensils the way a cop wields a billy club and he had no patience for smart-mouthed teenagers.

"How old were you then?" Anari wanted to know.

"Younger than Mondo," she replied. "I was only a trainee back then. I hadn't even started my training at the academy yet."

Like Mondo, Domino had joined Team Rocket at a young age to take the place of her deceased father and Giovanni had taken the duty of completing the upbring of his friend's daughter seriously. He was quick to praise and quick to find fault, and on that particular day he had not been happy at the prospect of his son being left in a tree during a thunderstorm.

Anari wondered what her cousin Silver was like. In all this time she had not seen so much as a picture of him. She herself had accumulated quite a collection of photographs of her friends and family members (many of which were on her nightstand sitting in frames her uncle had given to her) but Giovanni did not keep his photographs out where other people could see them or remark on them. He was a private person, and preferred it that way.

"Whatever happened to Silver?" she asked Domino.

"He doesn't want anything to do with Team Rocket," Domino said. Anari looked away. Sometimes she felt that way, too.

. . .

Anari made a point of getting up earlier than usual the following day so she could slip out without receiving another lecture from her uncle. She wrote a brief if slightly smart-aleck note that read:

_Leeving HedQarters today with Domeno and Mondo. Just in case you forgot._

She looked her note over, then underlined the word "forgot" several times before leaving it on the kitchen table and heading down to the cafeteria for breakfast. She cheerfully greeted the kitchen staff, having developed a new appreciation for the work they did each day, and quickly devoured the plate of pancakes set in front of her. Domino entered a few minutes later and ordered a cup of coffee.

"Hey Shortie, you ready to start our mission?" the Elite agent asked as Anari started on her second plate of pancakes.

"Food now, mission later," the child responded, shoving a whole pancake in her mouth.

"Charming," Domino responded in a sarcastic tone at the child's lack of table manners. "Well, when you're finished eating like a starving Swinub take this to your uncle and meet me in the supply room." The blonde dumped a thick file on the table, took her coffee and left. Anari stared at the manila folder as though it were a bomb about to go off. So much for her plan to avoid seeing her uncle before she left. It seemed the Elite agent also desired to avoid her irate boss this morning. Mondo was the first one Domino had sought out for the job, but he had conveniently disappeared when the subject of a last-minute delivery to Giovanni's office came up.

_Maybe I should go live with my Grandma..._ Anari thought gloomily as she exited the cafeteria and trudged down the corridors to deliver the file. _I bet SHE wouldn't be so mean!_

She'd been to see her grandmother several times since her initial visit. Giovanni had given her permission to "commandeer" Mondo to take her visiting once or twice a month. Last time Maria had introduced her to her neighbors, Claudia and Roseann. Roseann, a widow like Maria, had managed to make friends with many of the wild Pokémon who liked to roam on her property. Anari's favorite were a pair of Stantler who would take Pokémon chow right out of your hand if you approached them gently. Claudia, who lived on the other side of Anari's grandmother, had never been married. She preferred the company of Pokémon to people and Anari was both surprised and delighted when Claudia opened her door for the first time and EIGHT Meowth came out. They followed their keeper all over the neighborhood, Maria explained, and Claudia was known locally as "The Meowth Mom".

_Those are the kind of people to live with._ Anari thought._ Nice people who help Pokémon and make friends with them._

As if to drive the point home, a pair of grunts snickered at her as they passed by. Anari sighed. Two days ago everyone had treated her with respect. Now a goodly portion of the staff snickered at the sight of her. They knew she was in disgrace. Hell, every agent in HQ had found out yesterday when they saw her working in the cafeteria trying not to trip over the soiled, adult-sized apron she was wearing as she served everyone their morning meal. Giovanni did not hire workers of the best class and anyone who failed in their tasks or pissed the boss off were subject to scorn and ridicule. Mondo was also suffering from his humiliation. His direct superior in the supply room was using the fact that he'd temporarily fallen out of Giovanni's favor to drive the boy harder than ever.

Anari walked to her uncle's office, hoping he would still be in their quarters so she could just leave the file on his desk. To her disappointment, she found him sitting as his desk.

"Thank you for informing me of your departure," Giovanni told her after she handed the folder to him. His tone of voice made clear exactly what he thought of the tone of her note. "Your spelling needs improvement."

"Uh... right," she replied, now feeling embarrassed and foolish. When she'd written it she'd felt like she was making a point. Now the whole exercise seemed petty. Childish.

"Anari."

"Yeah?"

"Be _careful_. Follow Domino's lead and don't take any unnecessary risks. Some people worry about you, just in case YOU _forgot_."

"You're afraid I'll get hurt?" Anari retorted, clenching her fists. "You didn't care about hurting me when you spanked me!"

"After the stunt you and Mondo pulled you're lucky I'm letting you out of my sight! I ought to have confined you to our quarters for the rest of the month!"

"You didn't need to HIT me!" the child yelled, finally venting the anger that she'd been suppressing. "OR yell at me, OR make me do all those stupid chores! I'm not one of your workers!"

"No," he answered, "You're my niece, and I expect you to obey me. You knew very well where you were supposed to be and you chose to deceive Mondo into taking you somewhere else instead. You also knew it was wrong of you to leave without telling me and you chose to do so anyway. There are consequences to our actions, child."

Anari couldn't deny that he was right. Giovanni sighed, and motioned for her to come closer.

"Anari... When you couldn't be found I feared that someone might have taken you off base without _your_ permission. I have enemies, and while I don't believe any of them are aware of you yet I can't be certain of that. For five years I believed you were dead, and I'm not foolish enough to dismiss the fact that it's well within the realm of possibility that I might lose you again."

Anari's anger dissipated somewhat, seeing the genuine concern in her uncle's face. He didn't want to lose her. As annoyed as she was, she didn't want to lose him, either. She walked around his desk and put one of her small hands on his broad shoulder.

"You're not going to lose me."

"I don't know that and neither do you," he replied bluntly, reaching up to touch the red R hanging from the child's neck. He briefly thought of the necklace's original owner, who he had once thought he would never lose. Mothers seemed invincible in the eyes of their children. "Be _careful_."

"I will," his niece promised.

"Good, and when you get back we're going to talk about the dent you put in the washing machine!"

Anari scurried out, deciding that lecture could _definitely_ wait another day.

* * *

><p>To be continued in Chapter 10: "Undercover Mission".<p> 


	10. Undercover Mission

**Home Is Where the R Is**  
>Chapter Ten - Undercover Mission<p>

.

"The clothes suit you," Domino said, as Anari examined herself in the mirror. She was wearing a black and white sailor schoolgirl uniform with a red bow on the front and her brown hair had been styled to look just like Domino's. Domino had even loaned her a matching hat. Back when Anari had been preparing to join Butch and Cassidy on their disastrous helicopter ride, she had been quite surprised to learn that Team Rocket had clothing her size in their collection of disguises. She was even more surprised when Cassidy showed her outfits so small and oddly-shaped that they could only have been designed to fit Pokémon. Team Rocket was obviously prepared for anything. Today Domino had brought her several school uniforms to try on but the one she was currently wearing was the only one that fit properly.

"I like the clothes," Anari said. "But I'm not sure about the hair."

"You look fine," Domino assured her. "No one will have any trouble believing you're my little sister now!"

Anari raised her eyebrow skeptically. _I wouldn't believe it._ She and Mondo could pass for siblings, having the same hair and eye color, but Domino was another matter. Despite their matching hairstyles the two looked nothing alike.

"You'd best tuck in your necklace," Mondo advised, before stepping over to get his picture taken. Anari stuffed the red R in her shirt, safely out of sight.

"Stand over there, Little Miss," an agent directed her, as Mondo stepped down from the spot he was pointing to. "And stand still." Anari did as she was told. The agent used a machine to take her picture, then Domino took her place to be photographed next.

"Why is he taking our pictures?" Anari wanted to know.

"For our student IDs," Mondo said. "If anyone asks, we're all students at Pokémon Tech."

"Then how come my uniform is different than Domino's?" the child asked, pointing to the grey skirt, grey vest and white puffy-sleeved blouse Domino wore.

"Because we don't have a uniform small enough for you so we had to improvise," Domino told her. "You're actually too young to be a student at Pokémon Technical, but hopefully no one will notice.

Before Anari could ask what "improvise" meant, the man at the counter called them up to collect their IDs. Anari closely examined the card with her picture on it. The name on it was Mari Brown and it said that she was ten years old. She looked at Mondo's next, which named him Billy Brown. _What a boring last name,_ she thought. Domino's ID claimed her name was Goldie, which might have suited her better had it not been for the last name. It reminded Anari of those restaurant and bakery commercials that advertised their products "baked to a golden brown." _Baked to a Goldie Brown_, the child thought, imagining a loaf of bread shaped like Domino's head. She giggled.

"The convention is for young trainers, so you'll need a Pokémon as well," Mondo told her.

"I don't have any."

"Well, there's one on the way," he said, winking. "The boss insisted on it."

"What kind?" Anari inquired.

"You'll see."

"See what?" asked James, appearing unexpectedly behind Domino. She spun around quickly.

"Don't DO that!" she ordered, annoyed at being spooked by the blue-haired idiot.

"The boss ordered us to meet you here," Jessie replied indignantly. "He said you needed to borrow something from us."

"What do you need?" James asked. "I hope it's not food because Jessie ate the last of it." Jessie hit him with a paper fan.

"I wasn't the one who ate all the donuts this morning!"

"No, but you ate the rest of our field rations!"

"Because YOU ate all the donuts!"

"Wobbuffet helped!"

"Woooobbufet!" Wobbuffet added, letting itself out of its pokéball. Domino, Mondo and Anari just stared.

"Yous two have been at it all morning," Meowth told them. "Can't yous just give it a rest?"

"Meowth!" Anari exclaimed, running over and hugging her friend.

"THAT'S what the boss wanted," Domino informed Jessie and James. "He wants Meowth to accompany us on an undercover mission."

"Meowth was da one who stole all that food in da first place and I didn't get any!" the Pokémon told Anari, looking for sympathy.

"YOU ATE ALL THE FISH LAST NIGHT!" Jessie and James yelled together.

"There's a room reserved for the two of you at the hotel across the street from the convention center," Domino said, hoping to get rid of the pair as quickly as possible. "We'll return Meowth when the mission is over."

"A hotel room?" James asked. "You mean for free?" He and Jessie both cheered, their quarrel immediately forgotten.

"Hot water!" Jessie cried.

"Room service!" her partner squealed.

"And BEDS!" they exclaimed together, dancing joyfully.

"The clerk at the front desk is one of us," Domino said, handing Jessie a card with the hotel's name and address on it. "Just tell him you want service _at rocket speed_."

"Back in your ball!" Jessie commanded Wobbuffet. As soon as the Pokémon had disappeared, she and James sped out the door at rocket speed- much to Domino's relief. She _really_ couldn't stand those two. It was bad enough Giovanni had insisted on the loud-mouthed cat tagging along. She had secretly dubbed the trio "Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest". She hadn't decided who was dumbest.

"Why did the boss tell us to make sure their hotel room only had one bed in it?" Mondo asked Domino, as Anari swung Meowth in the air happily some distance away. "Is he punishing them again?"

"No, he wanted to make sure they stay occupied, so they'd stay out of our way."

Mondo's face turned bright red and he accidentally swallowed the gum he was chewing. "T-the boss thinks of everything, doesn't he?"

"A leader with foresight if ever there was one," Domino agreed.

. . .

"...And _then_ we had to clean all the toilets, and mop the floors and do all the laundry!" Anari complained to Meowth, who was sitting in the backseat with her as Domino drove them to their destination. The Pokémon was perched cosily on pile of grey blankets.

"Dat sounds like a lotta woik," Meowth empathized.

"It wasn't fair! Sometimes I just want to run away from home!"

"Actually, many people who work here DID run away from home when they were young," Mondo said, sitting up in the passenger seat of the car. "My father did. He ran away from an orphanage."

"James ran away too," Meowth said.

"Was he an orphan, too?" Mondo inquired. Meowth snickered.

"Hardly. Jimmy lived in a house so big yous could fit TEN orphanages in it!"

"Runaways are common here," Domino told them. "The boss encourages the recruitment scouts to seek them out."

"Why does he do that?" Anari wanted to know.

"For one thing, they're desperate. Makes for easy recruits, but it can also be risky."

"Why?"

"Because desperate people do dangerous things. Their loyalties can change on a dime and they take unnecessary risks. When a person is feeling desperate enough they'll cling to anything without thinking of the consequences. A drowning man will reach out for any item held out to him, even if it's an electric cattle prod!"

Anari asked what an electric cattle prod was and Mondo told her.

"Still, the benefits generally outweigh the risks," Domino continued. "Children who leave home are already conditioned to rebel against authority. _Today's dissidents are tomorrow's assassins_. That's what my father used to say. And once settled and properly trained, they're much easier to work alongside than those with lingering attachments to people on the outside who might cause their conscience to override their judgement. "

"What is a dissident?" Mondo asked. Anari wanted to know, too.

"A dissident is someone who disagrees with the established order of things," Domino explained. "Father believed that people on the fringes of society who don't agree with the rule of law are more likely to rebel against it by joining organizations like ours; and he was right."

Meowth personally didn't think runaway youths were quite the same as political dissidents, but he couldn't argue with the fact that both tended to fall on the wrong side of the law. Anari briefly wondered what it would be like to run away. She had a hard time imagining where she would sleep or who she would go to for food. _Kids who really do run away must have a hard time..._ she mused.

"There should be some blankets folded up back there," Domino told Anari. "Do you see them?"

"Yes, Meowth's sitting on them."

"Good. When we get back I want you to hide under them until we clear the area."

"Okay," the child agreed. "Hey, is it true that Domino isn't your real name?"

"That's right. Many people within the organization abandon their birth names to keep the police from discovering their identities. Giovanni's mother was the first to do it, and when I became an agent I decided to do the same."

_Big Brother changed his name..._ Anari thought. _He changed mine, too._ "So why did you pick the name Domino?" she asked aloud.

"In memory of my father. He died on a mission when I was young."

"Yours did too, didn't he?" Anari asked Mondo. He nodded.

"That's right. A lot of people have lost family members that way. Miss Jessie lost her mother on a mission as well. Being a Rocket is dangerous work."

"Let's hope we all prove to be smarter and more fortunate than our predecessors," Domino said. Mondo and Anari agreed.

. . .

The convention center was huge. It stood four stories tall and the roof appeared to be a round glass dome. Anari wondered what a flying-type would see if it perched on top of the building and looked inside. Domino parked strategically around back close to the emergency exit and gave instructions for Meowth and Mondo to disable the security cameras and set up smoke bombs near the exit. The two entered the building from a side door (Meowth picked the lock) while Domino and Anari walked all the way around the building to go through the main entrance.

"We'll walk around the convention center until they're finished," Domino told the child as they entered. She paid at the booth and both of them had to present their student IDs. Finally they were each given a badge with their fake name on it before being told they could enter.

"Won't Mondo get in trouble for not having one of these?" Anari asked, holding up her badge.

"I'm sure _Billy_ will think of something," Domino replied. "Now listen: When we're finished here the smoke bombs will keep us from being followed. Once they go off head _straight_ out the back exit. Don't dawdle, and don't get yourself lost. Once the smoke clears we should already be out the door. Stragglers get left behind."

"Isn't that what you got in trouble in the first place?" Anari pointed out logically. "Leaving people behind?"

"Just make sure you do it," Domino told her crossly. "Smoke bombs signal the end of a heist and all Team Rocket members should be out of sight before the smoke clears. Including you." _Especially you! _Domino thought. She didn't dare imagine what the boss would do if she came home minus the child he'd placed in her care upon her own request. _  
><em>

The interior of the building somehow seemed even bigger than the exterior. It was filled with creatures she had never seen before from places she'd never heard of. Anari had never seen so many Pokémon in one place before. Not even her uncle had this many, and Team Rocket possessed more Pokémon than anyone she knew.

"What's that?" she asked Domino, pointing to what appeared to be a cloud on an extremely high pedestal.

"That's one of our main targets," Domino explained. "Altaria."

"Look at the babies!" Anari pointed, jumping up and down with excitement. Nestled against the bird were two tiny Swablu.

"Hush!" Domino whispered. "Don't bring attention to yourself. You'll have plenty of time to get a closer look once they're in our possession." They moved past Altaria's perch and continued to walk around. Some of the rooms wouldn't allow them to enter without identification and proof that they'd paid the entrance fee, so "Mari" and "Goldie" pulled out their badges and fake IDs. No one gave them any trouble. Domino was taking mental notes on what Pokémon might be worth stealing in addition to those already on her list but Anari had completely forgotten their mission by the time they'd entered the third room.

"Look at the fluffy Mareep!" she squealed. "There's a Skitty sleeping on it's back! And that Furret looks just like my Grandma's!"

"Calm down," Domino told her crossly. "You act like you've never seen Pokémon before. Do you see any of the other children here making such a fuss?"

"Oh wow, look at the Mareep!" a boy yelled excitedly, actually jumping up and down.

"And a SKITTY!" his older sister squealed. "On it's a back! A SKITTY!" The two made a beeline straight for the objects of their affection, knocking Domino over in the process. A third child, eager to get a closer look at the Furret, stepped on the blonde's head.

"Ow!"

Anari grinned smugly as her chaperone picked herself up and wiped some dirt off her skirt.

"Oh, shut up," Domino grumbled, even though the little girl hadn't said anything. Anari laughed.

.

When Mondo and Meowth finally returned a while later they were both in disguise. They each wore a black cap and a matching black shirt that had STAFF printed on the back. Mondo had also managed to secure a badge from somewhere, which was now pinned to the waist of his pants.

"Took you long enough," Domino told them. "Is everything set up?"

"All ready to go," Mondo confirmed.

"Have you seen Anar- er, I mean Mari?" Domino asked them. "I've been looking for her for the past fifteen minutes! I told her not to leave this room. Blast that girl, where IS she?"

"Up there," Mondo pointed. Domino looked up. The child had joined a group of boys who'd managed to avoid the security guard's notice as they climbed the plastic indoor display tree in the center of the room. The faux-tree (complete with green fabric leaves) was enormous, and "grew" four floors high, all the way up to the glass dome ceiling. The upper stories of the convention center had railings where people could view the impressive display from different angles, and with the tree currently filled with flying-type Pokémon the children on the upper floors were pushing and shoving to get a better look. Thankfully Anari wasn't _that_ high up. She seemed to be trying to get a better look at a Hoothoot perched on one of the lower branches. Unlike her male accomplices, however, Anari wasn't dressed for climbing trees. The skirt of her uniform was far too short for her to be engaging in such an activity.

"Don't look!" Domino scolded Mondo.

"She's a _kid,_" he retorted. "And we've got to get her down before that security guard sees."

"Hey, you kids!" the guard yelled. "Get down from there!"

"Too late," Meowth said.

Slowly the four children made their descent down the display tree, disappointed. Anari soon learned that going _up_ was a lot easier than trying to get back _down_. She couldn't see her feet and the patent-leather Mary Janes Domino had insisted she wear with her uniform were slipperier than her normal shoes. To everyone's horror (and her abject terror) she slipped, plummeting to the ground and landing on the security guard. They both collapsed in a heap. To Mondo, Meowth and Domino's relief Anari stood up, seemingly unhurt. The same could not be said for the middle-aged security guard, who clutched his back in pain. Domino clenched her fists.

"I'm... going... to... KILL HER!"

. . .

"What did I tell you about attracting attention?!" Domino scolded the seven year-old in front of the mirror of the the ladies room. "If you were my daughter I'd give you a tanning you wouldn't soon forget! You could have been_ hurt!_"

"I just wanted to see-"

"I don't _care!_" Domino said emphatically. "Now hold still!"

Anari sighed and stared at her now badly-scuffed shoes as Domino took the ribbons out of her hair and smoothed it down to its normal style. It was too disheveled to leave up and Domino wanted to alter the girl's appearance as much as possible now that dozens of people had watched her and the trio of reckless brothers get scolded first by the security guard, then by the convention staff.

"We have a mission to complete and I want no more foolishness from you!" Domino said as she tossed Anari's hat in the trash. "I have to get the Pokémon we're supposed to steal or we'll _both_ be in trouble when we get home. You stay with Mondo and Meowth from now on and you'd better not cause _anymore trouble_!"

"Can we steal that Hoothoot?" the girl asked hopefully as they headed for the door.

"_No!_ Thanks to you we're going to have to avoid the central room entirely. Or weren't you listening when the head of the convention staff threatened to revoke your badge if they caught you in there again?"

"What does "revoke" mean?"

"It means_ throw you out!_"

"Oh."

"Actually, da correct definition of "revoke" is ta nullify or take away," Meowth quipped as Domino and Anari came out of the bathroom. "Nice Jigglypuff underpants, by da way," he said to Anari, who turned pink. The cat-type had ditched the uniform and stuffed it in Mondo's shoulder bag so he would appear to be nothing more than an ordinary Pokémon.

"And if they take her badge away she'll be _thrown out!_" Domino responded. "So it's up to you two to keep her out of trouble. I've got to get to work." The group had a brief discussion on the remaining items on Domino's list. Meowth had already swiped several of the Pokémon they were supposed to steal while he and Mondo were disabling the security cameras and the pokéballs were now in Mondo's bag. Domino was pleased with this unexpected bit of good news and her opinion of the cat-type rose several notches. "You get Altaria, then, while I get the rest of the items on our list," Domino said to Meowth. "I'm sure "Billy" and "Mari" will help. Be discreet, and don't let _her_ out of your sight!" With that she was gone.

"So where is Altaria?" Mondo asked his companions.

"I know where it is," Anari replied. "Over this way." She led them to the room containing the pedestal where Altaria was perched with its offspring and pointed to it. Mondo's face fell.

"There's no way I'm going to be able to reach that high!"

"Maybe we can do it together," Anari suggested. "Pick me up." They snuck behind the giant pedestal and Mondo lifted Anari onto his shoulders. Even on tip-toes they failed to reach the sleeping Pokémon. "We need a ladder," Anari said.

"Too big," Mondo replied, putting her down. "People would notice us bringing it in here and wonder what we're doing."

"What about dat over dare?" Meowth asked, pointing to a step stool on the other side of the room.

"Might work," Mondo agreed. "But we need a cover story for why we're bringing it here."

"We could say we're cleaning," Anari suggested.

"With what?" Mondo asked. "We don't have any cleaning supplies."

"Den let's go find some!" Meowth said, and the group spent the next twenty minutes searching for a janitor's closet. By the time they secured the supplies they needed and returned to the room containing Altaria and Swablu, the step stool had been removed from the corner and the group spend another twenty minutes trying to locate another one. Anari was silently reflecting on the fact that field missions were a lot more leg work than she had originally anticipated when Domino found them, carrying a large bag that Anari (correctly) suspected was filled with stolen pokéballs.

"Do you have it?" Domino asked Mondo.

"We're getting it now," the boy said. "Had to get a few things first."

"Do you want to wait in the car?" Domino asked Anari. "We're almost done here."

Anari shook her head. "I'm helping."

Domino nodded approvingly. "Good girl. I'll be waiting, then." They parted company with the blonde and before long Meowth spotted another step-stool. This one looked older and shabbier than the first, but Mondo figured it would do. He carried it back to the room while Anari lugged the cleaning supplies.

"We'd better hurry up and get this over with before "Goldie" gets impatient," the young Rocket remarked as he set the stool down behind the pedestal where no one would see it. "I'll pretend to be cleaning. You and Meowth use these." He handed the youngest member of his team three pokéballs- one for Altaria and one for each of the Swablu. He then grabbed the mop and began cleaning the floor while Meowth and Anari stealthily moved behind the pedestal. The cat climbed onto the child's shoulders and she climbed onto the old wooden stool.

"Can you reach?" she asked Meowth.

"Nope, still too high. We're gonna have to get Mondo to do it."

"Mondo!" Anari whispered to him, forgetting to use his fake name. "It's too high. We need your help." Mondo put the mop back in the bucket and snuck behind the pedestal. He picked Anari up and Meowth took his place around front to keep watch.

"Can you reach?" Mondo asked, just as Anari had done before.

"Just a little higher," Anari said softly.

"Try getting on my shoulders."

Anari did so, and footstool began to wobble from their movement. One of the three wooden legs was shorter than the others and every time either of them moved it shifted, causing their stomachs to lurch. They stood still for a moment, fearing the thumping on the floor might have attracted attention, but no one came to investigate. Finally Anari pulled two of the three pokéballs out of her skirt pocket. _How am I going to do this?_ she thought. _If I can't get them all at the same time the last one is going to be scared. Should I get the Swablu first, or...?_

"Anari, hurry!" Mondo hissed, trying to keep his voice at a whisper as he balanced on the wobbly footstool. "What's taking so long?"

Anari watched the creatures nestle against their sleeping mother as she continued to wrestle with her conscience._ If I take them now, they're going to be scared... they won't know where they are or where their mother is. There's got to be some way to get all three of them together._

"Anari _please!_" Mondo whispered desperately. "I don't think this thing is going to last lo-" The stool gave way before he could finish his sentence, but not before Anari managed to simultaneously capture both Swablu in the pokéballs. Mondo tried to grab the pedestal for support, but the structure was not one solid piece as it appeared. It was constructed of round, light-weight plaster blocks stacked on top of one another and when he threw his weight against it in his panic the whole thing came crashing down in a cloud of white smoke. Both children hit the floor and Mondo cried out as he twisted his ankle.

All activity in the room came to a halt.

Meowth, shaking bits of plaster out of his fur, saw that everyone's attention had been diverted from their own various activities to the now-ruined display in the back of the room. Altaria, fearing that her children were buried under the rubble, began calling out to them. When the Swablu didn't answer back the Pokémon began to panic. Meowth quickly scampered out of the way as the giant blue bird began digging through the broken pieces of plaster.

What's going on here?" somebody asked.

"The Swablu are missing!" a little boy observed. "Altaria can't find her babies!"

Everyone in the room began talking at once while Mondo and Anari, covered in white plaster dust, exchanged helpless looks. What were they going to do now?

When Altaria was satisfied that her babies were not among the wreckage she began searching the room, calling out frantically. Anari felt like a monster. Mondo took out an empty pokéball and threw it, but Altaria broke loose and reemerged even more furious than before. Finally the enraged creature burst through one of the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, causing several children who'd been leaning against it at the time to crash through it. Fortunately for their sakes they were on the first floor of the convention center.

"Hey, you don't work here!" a member of the convention staff said, coming up to Mondo. She yanked the cap off of his head angrily. "How did you get ahold of a staff uniform?"

"I-"

"Just what did you think you were doing?" another employee demanded. This man wore a one-piece jumpsuit with the name of the convention center monogrammed on the front pocket and around his waist was a utility belt with a giant ring of keys hanging from it. Mondo guessed him to be a janitor, who of course would not be pleased with the mess he would now be stuck cleaning up. Mondo tried to think of a cover story, but his creative juices had dried up under the pressure. Anari was thinking on what Domino said about desperate people doing dangerous things. She was desperate enough, but she couldn't think of anything dangerous to do that would get her out of this room and back home to her uncle.

"Isn't obvious what's going on here?" a man nearby said. Everyone turned to look at him. In the young man's hand was the empty pokéball that Mondo had tried and failed to capture Altara with. It had a prominent red R stamped on it. "They're from Team Rocket!" Again the children exchanged looks but said nothing. Neither knew what to say.

"What's Team Rocket?" several people in the group asked.

"They've come to steal!" the young man clarified. "They must have taken the Swablu!"

"Of course that's what happened!" the female staff member agreed. "The boy stole those clothes and his little cohort here was trying to help him steal Altaria. Somebody get security!" Fortunately for Mondo and Anari the security personnel were all rushing outside to deal with the enraged Altaria. None had time to spare at the moment to deal with the kids who'd caused the problem in the first place.

"They're hardly a threat to public safety," a slim, frail-looking woman said. "Calm down. Just find their parents and-"

"Not a threat to public safety?" the male employee interrupted. "Look around you!" He pointed to the ruined display with one hand and gestured towards the broken window with the other. The group of children who'd crashed through it were all crying outside both in pain and terror as Altaria rampaged. Inside, surrounded by a crowd of strangers who he knew would gladly hand him and his companions over to Officer Jenny, Mondo couldn't help but wish he was outside himself. He'd rather take his chances with the enraged Pokémon.

"Still, they're only kids," the woman said, moved to pity by their obvious terror.

"A thief is a thief!" the janitor declared, pointing an accusing finger at the two children. "Just because they're young does _not_ mean they're innocent!" It was certainly true; no one in the room could deny it. Anari clutched Mondo's arm nervously. She certainly _looked_ innocent, regardless of what the truth might be. So did the teenage boy she was clinging to. Mondo's ankle was throbbing in pain and he feared that escape might be impossible under the current circumstances. He looked very young and very scared.

Meowth, however, never lost his head for a moment. Botched missions were something he had plenty of experience with and he knew at this point there was only one thing left to do: Get out, and make it fast. He grabbed a remote control out of Mondo's bag and pushed the button. Suddenly the room began filling up with smoke and Mondo quickly forced himself to his feet. He fell back to the ground and forced himself up a second time using Anari for support. Meowth led them through the crowd and out the door, fury-swiping anything in his path. Several people tried to follow, but once they were out of the room Mondo pulled a weapon out of his shoulder bag and shot anyone who made it out the door.

"What is that thing?" Anari asked. She'd seen Mondo pass out weapons to agents on countless occaisions, but she'd never seen him wield one before.

"Dart gun," he explained. "They'll sleep long enough for us to make our getaway."

"What's going on?" Domino asked, running up to them. "Where you able to get Altaria?"

"No, it broke out of the pokéball," Mondo answered. "We got the Swablu but Altaria destroyed a window and escaped outside."

"No matter," Domino replied. "The Swablu will evolve in time. I swiped all the Pokémon in the trading center and replaced them with empty balls. There's bound to be something good in the lot. Let's get out of here!"

Anari looked down at the pokéballs in her hands. If they weren't going to get Altaria... _These Swablu will never see their mother again... just like me. I'll be just like... _

"D-Domino... Mondo..." Anari whimpered. "I don't think-"

"Think later!" Domino ordered, pushing the child in the direction of the exit. "We've got to get out of here!"

"But... Altaria! We have to get Altaria!"

"There's no time!" Mondo told her as they ran down the hallway. He hobbled behind the rest, his ankle in agony. "Thanks to our stunt back there someone is bound to have called the cops by now!"

"The Swablu are going to lose their mother unless we do something!" the child cried desperately. "And Altaria will lose her babies!"

"It can't be helped, kid," Meowth told her. "We gotta got get outta here!"

"But they'll all be _sad!_" Anari cried, heedless of her now dripping runny nose. Her eyes were filled with tears.

"They'll get _over_ it!" Domino said severely. Anari stopped in her tracks.

"I shouldn't have done this... _I shouldn't have done this!_ We should give them back!"

Mondo's eyes widened. "Anari!" he exclaimed, horrified. Domino, in no mood for nonsense, slapped the girl hard. Anari stared at the woman in shock. Domino grabbed her by the arm and half-dragged her down the hall. The child resisted, slowing them down and making it easier for Mondo to keep up.

"This is what we DO here, Anari!" Domino informed her angrily. "We steal Pokémon! This is how we make our living, how your uncle stays in business! You know that! Would you destroy an entire empire and put hundreds of people out of work for the sake of a handful of Pokémon?"

"What about the people we HURT?"

"Those on the outside are our enemies. We have our own to think about."

"But-"

"Many of the men and women here would never be able to keep employment in the outside world, and some would go back to lives of starvation, homelessness and imprisonment. Is that how you would repay those who've been good to you, who've given you a home?"

Anari wrenched herself away from Domino's hold and sank to the floor. Mondo also got to his knees and put his arm around the sobbing girl's shoulders. "Miss Domino, please..." he pleaded, not wanting to upset his young friend further. Domino ignored him. She refused to coddle Team Rocket's heir the way the rest of HQ did. If this child was to head the organization one day she couldn't afford to be babied in times of crisis. Weak upbringing bred weak leaders, and weak leaders didn't last long.

"On your feet, Mondo!" the elite agent commanded. He obeyed her, wincing in pain.

"He's hurt!" Anari objected.

"He'll live," Domino informed her coldly. She sent Meowth on to make sure their path to the car was secure, then grabbed Anari by the arm and pulled her to her feet.

"Yes, people are going to get hurt- some may even die on these missions- and the Pokémon aren't going to be grateful for their change of address, either. But _you will learn to live with it!_ You are Team Rocket's heir and as such it will be your duty one day to keep this organization together and provide for the needs of everyone it. Our work keeps everyone fed and every day brings your uncle one step closer to fulfilling his ambitions. You are a part of this mission, and there's no going back now. _Now get moving!_" Those last three words were accompanied by a rough shove in the direction of the exit.

Anari obeyed her, and Mondo followed behind meekly, limping. His body protested painfully, but he knew Domino was right to force him onward. He had no desire to receive medical treatment from inside a police cell. Seeing his difficulty, Domino relieved him of the shoulder bag and let him use her for support as they vacated the premises.

Anari clenched the pokéballs containing the two infant Swablu in her hands- infants that would never again see their mother. How well she knew what that felt like! _I'm a baby-snatcher..._ she thought as she ran. I'm_ a thief!_ She now fully realized the truth that she'd been pushing into the back of her mind the entire time: _I'm one of the bad guys. _

She thought back on the many things she'd done since coming to live with her uncle. She had stolen. She had helped other agents cover up their crimes. Now she'd helped to take babies away from their mother and because she had faltered, Mondo had gotten hurt. But as much as those thoughts haunted her, the realization that came next was somehow much worse: A day would come when she would lose count of all the crimes she was an accessory to and she would graduate from her youth into a world where she would command others to commit crimes just as her uncle did now. Just like his mother before him. She was a link in the chain, helpless to part from the destiny that was her birthright. What had happened to the vow she'd made back at Team Rocket's training school, to Tony and to herself, to never sell her soul?

_No one can escape fate,_ her uncle was fond of saying, and she now realized that he was right. Not because she was incapable of leaving- Giovanni's own son had proven how easy that was- but because her heart wouldn't allow her to be anywhere else. Her uncle and all the people she had come to see as friends had become her entire world. She wouldn't give any of them up, not even the angry blonde who'd just slapped her across the face. Team Rocket was her family, her home, and as much as it pained her to admit it to herself, the price of her guilty conscience was worth it. _I don't want to lose them... I don't want to be alone._

"Anari, are you all right?" Mondo asked, when he noticed she was slowing down. "Did she hurt you?"

"Don't _baby_ her!" Domino ordered.

Anari fingered the captured buttons on both pokéballs, thinking how easy it would be to release the creatures from their enforced confinement. The thought was a foolish one and she knew it. Such an action would only earn her another slap from Domino, and the Swablu would be easily recaptured. Their fates were already decided, and so was her own. _It's too late,_ she thought, her heart breaking as she minimized the size of both pokéballs and put them in her pocket. _It's too late for them and it's too late for me._

"I'm fine," she assured Mondo, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her wrists and swallowing the urge to break down again as the average child might have done in her place. "We have to hurry and go now before they catch us." Domino muttered that it was about time she started talking sense, and they soon exited the building. Meowth was waiting outside.

"I'll stay here and make sure nobody comes out this door 'til you guys are gone," the feline told them. "I'll meet up with Jessie and James afterward."

Domino agreed and continued to help her injured young comrade to where the car was parked.

"Get in," she ordered. "And cover up!" Mondo and Anari quickly piled into the back seat and covered themselves with the grey blankets. "Lay as flat as you can!" Domino told the children, tossing the shoulder bag and her bag of stolen pokéballs to the floor of the car and starting the engine. Altaria was now attacking the convention center. It had destroyed several more windows on the first and second floors and people were fleeing the building in terror. Anari hoped Meowth would be all right.

"This is all my fault," Anari said to Mondo when they were on the road and Domino had deemed it safe for them to come out from under the blankets. Mondo was no longer trying to conceal his pain as he rubbed his ankle. Anari felt guilty. "If I hadn't taken so long you wouldn't have hurt your ankle."

"I'm the one who messed everything up," Mondo answered. "I shouldn't have grabbed that stupid pedestal."

"You wouldn't have done it if the stupid stool hadn't broke," Anari reasoned.

"So it's the stool's fault!" Mondo decided. Anari smiled faintly.

"Yeah," she agreed. "It's the stupid stool's fault!"

"Are you okay?" Mondo asked her, seriously. "I know this mission was hard on you, but-"

"I'll get over it," she cut him off, not wanting to talk about it any more. "What happened... What_ever_ happens, I... I'll learn to live it." Her heart clenched, realizing Domino had spoken the truth. She would indeed learn to live it.

She already had.

.

_To be continued in chapter 11_


	11. Masquerade

**Home Is Where the R Is**  
>Chapter Eleven - Masquerade<p>

.

Anari's small hands stroked the pink party dress hanging on the back of her bedroom door.

_I can't wait to put it on..._ she thought, smiling.

She usually didn't care much for dresses, preferring clothes she could run, jump and climb in, but this particular dress was _special_. She had picked it out yesterday (with Domino's help) and tonight she would wear it to a magnificent party her uncle was hosting. A _masquerade ball_, he'd told her. Giovanni had even bought her special shoes and a little tiara to go with it. She opened the shoebox on her nightstand for the third time that morning to admire the shoes, then took the tiara sitting on her dresser and placed it on her head._  
><em>

"I need to thank Uncle Giovanni for this," she told her reflection, not sure if she had remembered to do so yesterday. She probably had, but in the whirlwind of activity she couldn't be sure. Yesterday had been Anari's eighth birthday and she had spent the entire day with her uncle flying from one place to another. They'd gone out for ice cream at the park with Persian, attended a show at the theater starring an all-Pokémon cast (where humans hiding in the background did the actual talking), ate at a five-star restaurant that the child could not pronounce (which she would later describe to Mondo as "delicious but hard to say!") and met with Domino at a high-class children's boutique to select two new dresses for Anari: one to wear at the masquerade Giovanni was hosting the next day and one to wear for the final part of their birthday outing- her uncle had reserved tickets to the opera. It was not, upon retrospect, the most time-appropriate activity for an eight year-old. The late-night performance was three hours long and the content of _Don Giovanni_ was probably not age appropriate either. Still, the little girl sat patiently in her pretty new velvet dress and showed no signs of boredom. She marveled at the powerful vocal acting and enjoyed looking at both the costumes and the lovely clothes the other opera-goers were wearing. Domino's golden evening gown was fantastic. It tightly hugged her form all the way to her thighs before flaring out dramatically. Anari had realized it was the first time she'd ever seen the woman _not_ wearing a hat. Giovanni delighted in being able to share this interest with his niece- until she fell asleep during the second act. He'd carried her home and Domino had helped him put her to bed. She'd awakened briefly to change into her nightclothes and Giovanni had promised her a special surprise in the morning.

Which she was still waiting for.

Abandoning her worship of her new finery, Anari placed the tiara back on her dresser and tiptoed into her uncle's bedroom for the seventh time in the past hour to see if he was up yet. He wasn't.

"Come on, Uncle, get UP!" Anari demanded for the umpteenth time. "You've been in bed FOREVER!"

Giovanni fought the urge to smile as he opened an eye and glanced at the alarm clock on his nightstand. "Forever?" he asked. "It's only an hour and a half later than I usually get up... and it is Sunday, you know."

_"Uncle!_"

They got up early every day, weekend or not. When he didn't have business to attend to on the weekend (which was rare) Giovanni usually took his niece on an outing. These were day-long excursions due to the fact that extra security measures were necessary. They had to first take the helicopter out to an isolated location where an agent awaited them with a vehicle. At the end of the day the agent drove them to a _different_ isolated location where the helicopter and its pilot would be waiting for them. One could never be too careful when the police were hell bent on bringing down the organization you ran and you had personal enemies to evade as well. Giovanni missed having use of his own car and often longed for the good old days when he'd run Team Rocket from the Vermillion City Gym. Anari, always happy for an excuse to go out, never seemed to mind the excessive precautions.

"You're always up before the sun," Giovanni remarked, which was true. The child was always awake and dressed well before him each day. She claimed she _had_ to get up once she was awake, because laying around in bed was boring. Personally, he'd kill to have a few extra hours of sleep each day. "I pity your children when you grow up," he grumbled. "You'll probably have them up at four in the morning."

Anari crossed her arms. "That's silly!"

"Yes, it is," her uncle agreed. "But I bet I'll get more sleep when you've left home."

"When I'm ten I'm going on a Pokémon journey," she informed him. "And you're going to miss me when I do!"

Giovanni considered this statement and quickly concluded it to be true. He would indeed miss the childish figure flitting around his quarters and running up and down the halls of Team Rocket HQ. It was almost alarming how attached he'd become; he'd even given up smoking because the child had informed him that his cigars smelled "yucky".

"Probably so," he conceded. "But for now... good night." He closed his eyes and pretended to go back to sleep, much to his niece's dismay.

"Uncle Giovanni, you _can't_ sleep all day!" Anari insisted.

"Whyever not?" he asked, opening an eye.

"Because the party is today! And besides, you forgot to do something IMPORTANT!"

"Have I?"

She nodded "Yes, you did!"

"You mean like... give a certain person her final birthday present?" Giovanni grinned, deciding to put the girl out of her misery. Anari smiled back.

"You DIDN'T forget!"

"How could I forget?" Giovanni responded. "You've only been coming in and out of this room every ten minutes or so for the past hour. And you reminded me about your birthday every day for the past two weeks!"

Anari laughed shamelessly. "Big Brother always said the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Although... why would you put grease on a wheel, anyway? Isn't grease what you cook french fries in?"

"Nevermind," Giovanni responded, his mood instantly soured by the mentioning of his nephew. "Here."

"What is it?" Anari asked, as her uncle handed her a pokéball.

"Your birthday present," Giovanni told her.

"But I'm only eight. I thought trainers got their first pokéballs when they turned ten."

"We don't exactly play by the rules here," he responded. "As you already know. With your uncanny talent for finding trouble I want you to have the proper protection. This should do nicely. Plus you'll gain experience training your first Pokémon."

"You mean there's already one in here?" the child asked, her eyes widening. "I don't have to catch one myself?"

"Beginning trainers are always given their first Pokémon," he explained. "Open it."

She did, and a Poochyena appeared. "It's so CUTE!" she squealed.

"I daresay it is, but there's more to Pokémon than their physical appearance, child. A well trained Pokémon can be a powerful weapon when properly utilized."

"Uti-what?" Anari asked, as the puppy licked her face.

"Utilized," Giovanni repeated. "Used in a productive fashion. If you train it well it will be good protection for you, and it will teach you the responsibility needed to be an exceptional trainer."

"Where did you find him?" Anari asked. "Or is it a her?"

"Him," Giovanni confirmed. "And you can thank Domino. She picked it out for you." He'd originally intended to start the child out with a poison-type as he did with Team Rocket's new recruits, but Domino had changed his mind.

_"She's not an agent,"_ the blonde had pointed out. _"And a child with a puppy or kitten will blend in considerably more than a child with a Grimer or a Koffing."_

_"I was thinking more along the lines of an Ekans,"_ Giovanni had responded. _"Her mother started out with an Ekans."_

_"She's not her mother, either,"_ Domino had pointed out logically. _"And after what happened to your nephew do you really think that girl would want a snake-type?"_

The memory of his nephew's strangled corpse in Arbok's coils came to him at that moment and he knew his subordinate was correct on all four points, and he told her so. Domino suggested getting a puppy and he told her to go secure one. She did.

Anari loved it.

"Can I take him with me when I go to the party tonight?"

"Starting today, you're a Pokémon trainer," her uncle said. "Your Pokémon goes where you go. Tomorrow I'll begin teaching you some basic battle techniques."

Anari cheered excitedly, hugging her new Pokémon.

"Oh, and one more thing," he said, opening the drawer of his nightstand. "Here." He handed the child a cat-shaped Venetian mask decorated with feathers. He explained she would need it for the party. "Everyone will be wearing masks, but I had this one especially made for you."

"Thank you!" was his niece's enthusiastic response, holding it up to cover the upper half of her face. "I love it!"

Giovanni dismissed her with a wave of the hand and Anari flitted out of the room with Poochyena at her heels. Her uncle dragged himself out of bed and gently nudged Persian awake.

They had a big day ahead of them.

.

The masquerade ball was being held in an enormous mansion Giovanni had recently purchased for him and Anari to live in. It sat on the very edge of a busy city that was reputed to have one of the finest schools in the region. He'd told Anari that if things went as planned the two of them would move into the house next week and she would begin attending formal classes by the end of the month. Anari wasn't too pleased at the prospect. She had no desire to go to school, and while the house was lovely, she didn't want to live away from Mondo and the rest of the people at Team Rocket Headquarters.

As they rode to the place in the back of a limo Giovanni told her about his family mansion that he had lived in years ago. Multiple threats on his life had forced him to leave and take refuge at Team Rocket Headquarters and the police had seized the property before he could return and reclaim it. Domino, who was riding with them, added that the gardens surrounding the place had been spectacular. She had visited often as a little girl in the company of her father. Anari liked the idea of having a garden but as she stared out the window listening to the two adults share their favorite memories, she wondered if her uncle's reason for buying a new home was a futile attempt to try and recreate what he had lost. It wouldn't work, she knew that already. She had learned from first-hand experience after the death of her brother that things (and people) lost in the flow of time could not be retrieved again. The past was the past.

Their talk of gardens reminded Anari of a conversation she'd had with her grandmother Maria a few months ago. Maria had been moving daffodil bulbs from one area of the yard to another. She'd ordered the bulbs from a catalog and the flowers were supposed to be bright pink, but they'd turned out to be dull and very nearly orange. The old lady decided it must have been the poor soil responsible for the outcome, so with Anari and Mondo's help she'd dug them up, prepared a new place for them and replanted them; optimistic that next year would be better.

_"I used to have yellow ones,"_ she'd told her granddaughter. _"Your mother loved them. Then one spring it rained so much that the yard kept flooding and all the bulbs rotted. I was devastated, but when I thought about it I realized that looking at them had stopped making me happy years ago. They made me dwell on the past. So I looked at my catalog I decided to take the opportunity to try growing something different."_

_"These didn't make you happy, either,"_ Anari observed.

_"They're a learning experience,"_ the old lady said, smiling. _"All flowers are. Every plant I grow teaches me something new. These particular daffodils taught me that they weren't happy where I planted them and needed to be moved. Next spring I'll learn whether or not they're happy here where we've planted them."_

_"What did the yellow daffodils teach you?"_ Anari wanted to know.

_"That you can't live your life going backward. __A person can only go forward. If you spend your days trying to get back to where you used to be instead of looking ahead, you'll end up going nowhere at all!"_

It was the truth, and Anari knew it. When she had first come to live with her uncle all she'd wanted was to go back to her old life; but wishing for it hadn't made it happen. She'd had to look forward and make Team Rocket Headquarters her home. She knew her uncle still wished for his old home even after all these years. He often spoke of his youth and his deceased mother but those things, like his family mansion, were lost to him forever. Maybe the sense of loss was something that never completely went away.

Back in the present, Giovanni and Domino were discussing the tulips his mother used to grow while Anari stared out the window of the limousine, wondering if in a few weeks she too would be weighed down with feelings of longing for yet another home she could never reclaim.

.

The party was a hit.

Anari had never been in such a lavish environment before and found the experience exhilarating. The room was beautifully decorated, the musicians were fantastic and the caterer had done a fabulous job with the party food. The men sauntered around in costumes and tuxedos, while the women rustled about in silks and satins, chiffon and charmeuse, velvet and lace. Everyone wore masks. Anari was enthralled by the elegance and beauty of the people around her. Her own dress was a combination of taffeta and tulle, and when she twirled around the dress's poofy pink skirt twirled beautifully with her. She felt like a princess. Her hair had been pulled into a bun and the jewels in her tiara matched the pink sash around her waist. The only thing that didn't match was the mask her uncle had given her, but that didn't bother her in the least. She decided next time he had a party like this she'd wear a dress the same color as the mask, and maybe get some accessories to match.

Giovanni had chosen to invite the best and brightest Team Rocket had to offer to this social function. All the Elite agents were present, as were the executive members and his most talented field agents. The doctors and scientists had also received invitations and those that had chosen to come brought some of the people under their command with them. Butch and Cassidy were two of these, arriving in the company of Dr. Namba. Namba's motley costume made him look like a court jester. Cassidy wore a dark purple gown with an asymmetrical hemline that Anari found fascinating. The waist was embroidered to make it look like she was wearing a belt of stars and the short sleeves of the dress flared out like the tips of her pigtails. Her usual triangle earrings had been replaced with large stars. Butch, like the majority of the men present, wore a simple tuxedo. He'd spent the afternoon helping Cassidy and Namba with their clothes and makeup and hadn't had the time or desire to find himself anything more elaborate. Professor Sebastian was dressed as a mime, and Dr. Zegar was wearing a wig and theatrical mask that made him look like a sort of fancy clown. Anari wished that Mondo had been invited, along with Jessie, James and Meowth, but Mondo was a mere trainee and Jessie, James and Meowth were not her uncle's favorite people. The trio were now in the far off Hoenn region, and it was rumored that they had been sent there to keep them out of Giovanni's hair.

"It's the perfect place for them," Cassidy told her unfeelingly, when the little girl voiced her longing. "Far away away from the boss and far away from _me_." She and Jessie did not get along.

Wendy was also present, Anari was less than pleased to note. She was accompanied by one of the executive members and wore a dark green dress that Anari decided was the ugliest she'd ever seen. Giovanni, still upstairs with Domino putting the finishing touches on his costume, had yet to make his appearance. He'd left Marco and Niko downstairs to keep an eye on things and Anari had volunteered to greet the guests as they arrived. She stood near the door to welcome each person prettily as they entered.

"Where's the boss?" a latecomer wearing a top hat and cape asked as he entered. It was Pierce, one of Giovanni's most capable field agents.

"He'll be here soon," Anari told him. "I like your hat!"

He grinned.

"I like your mask." A burst of applause interrupted their exchange of pleasantries and they turned to see what was going on.

The host was making his entrance.

Slowly Giovanni descended down the wide staircase in the middle of the room with Domino on his arm and Persian following close behind. His costume, ordered weeks ago from a theatrical shop, was that of a king. The crown on his head sparkled in the light and the mask he wore matched his robes perfectly. Domino's black and white ball gown was even more elaborate than the one she'd worn to the opera. The cut was less dramatic, falling in a simple A-line, but it had beaded sequins on the front of the dress in a swirling pattern that reminded Anari of a distant galaxy seen through a telescope. The child adored it, and wondered if she could convince her uncle to get her a dress just like it.

The party progressed smoothly for the next hour or so. Anari took the opportunity to enjoy the delicious food and chat with some of the people she rarely got to see. Butch and Cassidy shared stories of some of their recent undercover assignments and Professor Sebastian told her (and half the other people present) about a new invention he was working on. He was quite enthusiastic. Dr. Namba had forgotten who Anari was until she reminded him, but he certainly hadn't forgotten his love of fishsticks. He complained loudly when he learned that there weren't any, but he brightened immediately when Anari led him to the lavish spread of catered food on a nearby table. They both fell in love with the prosciutto-wrapped scallops.

After a while the room began to feel stuffy. The air was filled with the scents of the various perfumes worn by the ladies, as well as the cologne and aftershave of the men. The smells all seemed to mix together, and in Anari's opinion the effect was not a pleasant one. Eventually the eight year-old removed herself from the crowd and retreated upstairs for some fresher air.

"I hope he doesn't eat all the scallops while I'm gone," Anari told Poochyena as she untied the mask from her face.

The Pokémon followed her like a shadow as she wandered through the empty rooms. For awhile she pretended she was a princess exploring an abandoned castle. The place was so big! What would it be like to live here? She tried to imagine the new life that her uncle was planning for the both of them. How different would it be to wake up in one of these huge suites instead of her bedroom in Team Rocket HQ, or to eat breakfast in the gigantic dining room downstairs instead of their quarters or the HQ cafeteria? Giovanni was already talking about hiring a housekeeper and a kitchen staff. Wendy had suggested hiring a nanny as well, but Anari was gratified to learn that her uncle wasn't keen on the idea. Moving house and going to school for the first time in her life would be a big enough adjustment. She didn't want to do either, but how could she tell her uncle that she'd rather live in a criminal hideout instead of a beautiful mansion he provided for her? How could she tell him that she would prefer to go on learning from Team Rocket's various staff members instead going to a fine educational institution that he would no doubt be paying a costly amount of money for her to attend? It sounded so completely ungrateful that she was embarrassed to even think it, let alone speak it. She felt frustrated and helpless, and part of her wanted to throw herself onto the floor and throw a tantrum, something she had not done since she was four years old. She was too old for tantrums now, and she didn't dare open her mouth and voice her feelings for fear of seeming ungrateful.

"What am I going to do, Poochyena?" she asked her Pokémon, kneeling down to hug him.

Poochyena squirmed out of her arms and began to growl in the direction of the window.

"What is it?" Anari asked. The heavy blinds of the window were closed and the cord used to open them were out of the eight year-old's reach, so she decided to go outside to investigate. "Let's go, Poochyena," she told him, and headed for the stairs. Poochyena followed reluctantly, still growling nervously.

They were halfway down the staircase when two of the downstairs windows shattered, causing the people standing near them to be showered in glass. They heard someone outside order his Pokémon to use Hyper Beam again and the rest of the ballroom windows were destroyed one by one. Several more people were injured by the glass and everyone except Anari threw themselves on the floor. Anari remained where she was, wide-eyed and pale, her right hand tightly gripping the banister and the other clutching her cat-shaped mask. Poochyena fled back to the second floor.

An eerie silence followed as the partygoers tried to judge whether or not it was safe to get up from the floor. Anari remained where she was, afraid to move. Finally Giovanni rose, helping Domino to her feet. A few others followed his example and rose and everyone began talking at once.

That's when the shooting began.

The shower of gunfire began on the right side of the room through the far-most window, then moved to each of the other destroyed windows. Everyone who had risen to their feet hit the floor a second time; some on their own, others cut down by the flying bullets. Cassidy shouted for Anari to go back upstairs, but the sound of the gunfire threw the child off-balance and sent her tumbling down the stairs. She whimpered in pain as she lay there covering her ears. Many people on the floor did the same, while others tried to roll away from the windows. Finally the gunfire ceased and the sound of car doors indicated that the attackers were making their escape. This time Marco and Niko were the first ones to rise, guns in hand. They ran out the front door and Domino followed suite, wielding her black tulip-shaped weapon. Anari heard more gunfire.

"Are you okay?" Cassidy asked her, as Butch helped the little girl to her feet. Anari nodded. Her tiara had fallen off her head, her tights had runs in them and were bloody from scrapping her knee and she was certain to be covered in bruises in the morning, but she was (for the most part) undamaged, which was more than could be said for most of the people in the room. Butch and Cassidy were unhurt, and Domino, Marco and Niko had had no problem running out the front door, but the majority of the people present were still on the floor moaning in agony. Some weren't moving at all. Pierce also seemed to have made it through the ordeal intact and began ordering those who were only mildly injured to assist in helping the badly wounded. Anari was now immensely glad that Jessie, James and Meowth were all the way in the Hoenn region and that Mondo was safely back at HQ. She wished she was there herself. She didn't realize her hands were shaking until she bent down to pick up her mask and her now-damaged tiara.

_I won't cry..._ she told herself. _I WON'T cry!_

Still shaking, she scanned the room and took note of the people who were now on their feet. Cassidy and Butch had begun the grim task of sorting the dead from the living, and Peirce was trying to get everyone capable of standing mobilized to start evacuating everyone else. Anari realized to her horror that her uncle was not among those who were back on their feet. Panicked, she ran through the room trying not trip over the people sprawled on the floor as she frantically sought the person that she now realized she loved more than anybody else in the world.

_Please don't be dead!_ she silently begged, no longer bothering to try and control her tears. _Don't be dead, DON'T BE DEAD!_

A few seconds later she spotted him. Giovanni's ruined costume was covered in blood. He had been shot twice: once in his torso and once in his left arm. Two of the three medical doctors present had also been shot- one lay either dead or unconscious on the floor and the other was on her knees coughing up blood. The third physician had a face full of shattered glass. Namba, Sebastian and Zegar were crowded around Giovanni tending to his wounds. In their tattered, bloody costumes they looked like three macabre circus clowns performing a grim stage show. Namba had ripped the majority of his costume to pieces, and Sebastian was using the scraps of cloth to stop the bleeding. Anari tried to rip her own dress but her small hands lacked the strength, so she untied the sash of her dress and handed it to him instead.

"Here, use this."

Sebastian wrapped the sash around his employer's arm and tied it, then Zegar and Namba helped him to his feet. Giovanni grimaced in pain. It was at this point Domino and the two bodyguards returned, reporting that all three people in the car had been killed.

"The fools ran out of ammunition," Marco reported. "They tried to run after we shot their tires."

"We seized their Pokémon," Domino added, holding up a large bag. Niko held up another.

"And their weapons. What do you want us to do with the bodies?"

"Leave them," was Giovanni's answer, before addressing the rest of the people in the room. "Everyone out now, before the police arrive!" he ordered loudly, "Make sure no one alive is left behind. Leave the dead."

Anari looked at all the people lying on the floor and her heart ached at the thought of leaving anyone behind, but there weren't enough able-bodied people left to take the corpses away. Anyone strong enough to lift a body would be needed to carry the unconscious and the seriously injured. Butch was carrying an unconscious Wendy in his arms, while Cassidy assisted the doctor with the face full of glass. Pierce had an injured person hoisted over his shoulder as he continued to give orders to the rest of the able-bodied agents. Anari ran to the staircase and called Poochyena to her, then recalled the Pokémon to its pokéball. There was no way she was leaving HIM behind!

"Anari, let's go!" Domino called. Anari ran to her, dropping the broken tiara to take the blonde's hand. Together they followed Marco and Niko as the pair helped Giovanni out of the room. Anari gratefully allowed herself to be led away from the carnage.

.

"We aren't going to move out of HQ now, are we?" Anari asked, as she sat by her uncle's bedside in Team Rocket's medical center. His arm was now in a sling and his naked torso was wrapped in bandages. Both bullets had been removed and Doctor Zegar reported that no vital organs had been hit.

"No, it looks like we won't be moving after all," Giovanni told his niece, as he gently rubbed Persian's head with his free hand. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not sorry," the eight year-old confessed. "I didn't even _want_ to move. Everything we need is _here_."

"Perhaps, but I relished the chance to give you a real home- a real _life_."

Anari realized now that she hadn't completely understood her uncle's motivations for wanting to move. He hadn't purchased that giant mansion just to relieve his sadness of losing his boyhood home; he'd also bought it because he'd wanted to give her all the things he had enjoyed in his youth.

"I _have_ a real life," the girl answered. "Here, with you."

One of the patients on the other side of the room began to scream as he regained consciousness.

"I can't see! I CAN'T SEE!"

Anari gripped the cat mask in her hands, frightened by the horror and desperation in the man's voice. It was the doctor Cassidy had helped get out of the mansion. Sebastian and Zegar, now dressed in their regular clothes, both rushed to his side. Namba had gone to the roof to await the helicopter they were expecting from Team Rocket's training school. Viper was sending the doctor usually stationed at the academy over to assist them.

"I was too lax with the security," Giovanni said, more to himself than anyone else as he and Anari watched the two scientists try to calm the terrified man. "I should have had armed guards posted outside. Persian tried to warn me just before it happened and I ignored him. I'm a fool."

"Poochyena tried to warn me, too," Anari said.

"Oh?"

"I was upstairs and he started growling at the window. I think he could hear them outside."

"You should have stayed up there where it was safer."

"I know, but... I didn't understand." She hadn't understood a lot of things. "Now I know why you're always telling me to be careful."

"We must learn to listen to our Pokémon," Giovanni told her. "We might live longer."

Anari stretched out her sore legs and sighed sadly. "I'm not going to be able to go on a Pokémon journey, am I?"

"What makes you think that?"

"It won't be safe."

"Not in Kanto it won't, but we can fly you to some other far-off region where nobody there knows who you are. When the time comes, you'll get your journey."

"What about you?" the child asked. "Will YOU be safe?"

"This isn't my first time being shot, and I guarantee you it won't be my last. It comes with the line of work."

The same line of work Anari herself would be expected to follow one day. She shivered involuntarily. "I don't want people shooting at me. I don't want your job if it means everybody wants me to die!"

"If I'm any good at my business, by the time you're grown up all my enemies will be gone," Giovanni assured her. "A man should outlive his enemies. You'll have to decide for yourself how to deal with your own."

"I don't want _any_ enemies!" was her passionate response. "I won't make enemies. I'll only make friends!"

Giovanni smiled at her youthful determination. "Then you'd be the first person in the world to do it. It just doesn't work that way."

"Why?"

"Because other people will want the things that you have, or try to control what you can and can't do. It's all about power."

"I don't want power," his niece told him. "I just want to be safe."

"Power will keep you safe. That's why you've got to seize it at every opportunity and hold on to it with everything you've got."

Anari wanted to point out that being powerful hadn't stopped him from getting shot, but she decided not to argue. Instead, the exhausted child set the mask down and pulled her chair closer to her uncle's bed. She laid her head on his thigh and closed her eyes. She didn't really care who was right or wrong, she was just glad he was going to be okay. Giovanni closed his own eyes, and soon they were both fast asleep.

.

_To be continued in Chapter 12: Raiding Drill_


End file.
